Quasi-SOTU: Heavy Campaigning, Liberal Substance

The above video is a 10-minute bullet-point recap of last night's 51-minute address by President Barack Obama to the joint session of Congress, his "quasi-SOTU."

For a full transcript, click here.

Let me begin by saying: This is the Barack Obama I voted for.

The thing that is giving a moment's caution, however, is also just that, in a way. Reviews of this quasi-State of the Union address are glowing, people are swooning and fawning again. And, while it can't hurt for the President to stoke the flames of his popularity, I sometimes worry that campaigning is Obama's answer to every problem. I will get lambasted from every corner for saying this, but so far, including getting elected President, all of Obama's major career achievements have been getting elected, and now a month into his presidency, I believe we have seen him fall back to the campaign-trail comfort zone twice. That said, let me also say, I remember (well, from my history lessons and my older family) a president who appeared to spend most of his presidency on the campaign trail, too, and his name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

I have not come to trash the President. I liked his speech, I thought it was the clearest indication since the inauguration that Obama is a center-Left president, that he does believe his campaign rhetoric, and that he intends to press his agenda as hard as necessary. And I agree with most of what he said. What I would like to do is grade his speech so to speak.

First half of the speech: blah blah blah blah. Campaigning. As I am not an Obamaniac, I caught myself drifting off. I had to YouTube and transcript-scan to get anything substantive out of it, and even then, precious little. In spite of the stimulus bill now being officially the law of the land, public confidence in the plan is pretty shaky. The first half of the President's speech was a nice morale booster, not much more. Maybe we shouldn't downplay the importance of that however, as confidence in the President's economic plan may well translate directly into market confidence.

Forty-five paragraphs in, we get some substance: Energy. Here's the policy goal outlined:

But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. And to support that innovation, we will invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America.

Next, we move on to Obama making good on a promise I am sure he made to Hillary Clinton before she consented to concede in June: Health Care Reform. Obama makes it clear he will not shelve Universal Health Care, ties it to our economy (correctly) and gives a clear timeline:

This budget builds on these reforms. It includes an historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform - a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It's a commitment that's paid for in part by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue. And it's a step we must take if we hope to bring down our deficit in the years to come. Now, there will be many different opinions and ideas about how to achieve reform, and that is why I'm bringing together businesses and workers, doctors and health care providers, Democrats and Republicans to begin work on this issue next week. I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.

Education is his next bullet point. Not only does he offer a fairly clear, if somewhat open-language (PC for "vague") plan, he calls on two specific Senators to introduce education legislation, and lays out a distinct promise both for the country and for individuals:

That is why we will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. I know that the price of tuition is higher than ever, which is why if you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to your community or serve your country, we will make sure that you can afford a higher education. And to encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations, I ask this Congress to send me the bipartisan legislation that bears the name of Senator Orrin Hatch as well as an American who has never stopped asking what he can do for his country - Senator Edward Kennedy.

My only question here is this: shouldn't he have have name-dropped Kennedy when he was talking about Health Care Reform? It's an interesting little bit, but not very important, probably.

And that was it. There is another good ten minutes of campaigning. Twenty-five paragraphs of it, to be specific. So, three substantive policy directives. Jon Favreau alternately mouthing the words as Obama spoke them, and compulsively checking his Blackberry every time there was applause. Obama's speech was, like most of them, high on rhetoric and emotional woo-hooing. Like I said, however, it may not be bad. We just might need a Cheerleader In Chief if we actually expect to get this leftward slide completed. And it is, as the President says, long overdue.