The Democratic Reagan
Obama's speech was his best rhetorical moment since Grant Park on Election Night. This guy is really good and reminds me of Reagan: Tremendous stage presence, great smile, easy to like, knows how to hit the big theme and avoid the minutia (thus making his speech about 20 minutes shorter than a typical Bill Clinton address to Congress). Like Reagan, his numbers might not pencil out, but he's not going to talk about many of those numbers. He has the strategic advantage of being more popular than any single one of his policies. He can thus tug a policy along behind him, as if it were a distracted puppy.
The opposition party may feel virtuous in sticking to what it claims are its principles, but in a chamber dominated by a young, charismatic leader, the Republicans simply look like old, crotchety sticks-in-the-mud. The Yesterday Party, still defending the gold standard, and wondering if it was a good idea to give women the vote.
Every Republican in the chamber probably had the same nagging thought: This is likely going to be the first of eight of these things. Obama showed no rookie moves. The only real hope for the GOP is to rely on that old historic standby, dominant party overreach. Moral hazard could create enough moral outrage to give the GOP at least a semblance of a foundation for a 2012 challenge. Obama knows that, which is why he said so directly, "I get it."
