Well,
the 2012 State of the Union has been delivered, and, if the Mayans and the
History channel are right, it was the last State of the Union speech before the
inevitable apocalypse later this year.
Apart from this potential historical novelty, the speech was not
particularly notable. It was what all
State of the Union addresses are, a carefully crafted collection of phrases
that are calculated to sound good, make the President look good, and throw up
some very hazy policy objectives and proposals that sound nice but are not very
concrete or practical. Obama and his
team are experts at delivering these inexact, rosy, hopeful speeches. But that doesn’t mean that the State of the
Union was totally devoid of content or value, you just have to look a little
deeper to find it. So buckle up, keep
all arms and legs inside the vehicle, and accompany me on an exciting journey
down, deep into the political core of last night’s speech.
There
were a few instances in the speech where Obama made clear policy suggestions. These policy suggestions are
generally designed to sound like great, common sense ideas at the first listen,
but after only a few moments of serious consideration, they are generally found
to be either impossible to implement, ineffective, or redundant. This is because the State of the Union
Address is intended for as broad an audience as possible, and they assume that
most people will simply hear the initial proposal, think, “yeah, that’s a good
idea, I like this guy, he’s got good ideas”, and then leave it at that. I hope for the country’s sake that this grossly
underestimates the average voter. As far
as the actual concrete proposals made in last night’s speech, I counted nine,
and tried to give each of them a balanced consideration here.
But the
State of the Union is not really a policy speech. It is primarily a political platform, especially
during an election year. This is where
last night’s speech is more interesting.
It provided Obama his first opportunity to lay out his campaign
strategy, and start staking out the positions he wants to take in his upcoming
re-election campaign. So, what did we
learn about Obama’s re-election strategy?
Well, for one thing, it seems pretty clear that he is going to fall back
on his big guns of “hope” and optimism this election cycle. Why wouldn’t he? The unfailing optimism of Barack Obama is
appealing to lots of people (especially young people), and it is the single
biggest reason behind his demolition of John McCain in 2008. In fact, as a rule, the candidate who can
present the rosier image of America wins elections. Just look at what Ronald Reagan did to Jimmy
Carter after the infamous “general malaise” speech. One particularly well placed piece of
optimistic prose was Obama’s claim that, "anyone who tells you that
America has declined or that our influence has waned doesn't know what they're
talking about". This is clearly a
preemptive strike on anticipated Republican attacks against his foreign policy
record. Now anyone who says that America’s
reputation or influence has suffered under Barack Obama is going to come across
as pessimistic and borderline unpatriotic.
Most Americans (especially those in the center and on the right of the
political spectrum) do not like to think that it is even possible for us to
lose influence or standing in the world of foreign policy. There is definitely a bit of “America, FUCK
YEAH!” in our national consciousness. Attacking
Barack Obama as having made America weaker is going to have to be done very
carefully, if at all. (n.b. I believe a case can be made here, especially
regarding what is basically the loss of Pakistan as any kind of partner, but I
am not sure it is a political “winner”)
On domestic matters, Obama
was equally optimistic. He continued to
attempt to stick the blame for all of the jobs lost over the last 4 years on
Bush, and then claim that his policies are really net producers of jobs. He also seemed to claim that the economy now
is actually not that bad and easily fixable.
The storyline going into the
speech was that it was going to contain strong notes of economic populism (or
class warfare if you asked Conservative commentators). Obama handled the notes of economic populism
with his typical political deftness. He started
out by saying that he wants an America where, "everyone gets a fair shot,
and everyone does their fair share".
This line is going to play great with the left and many in the middle
class, and is pure populism. Having
established that he was going to play the populist game, he went on to lay the
blame for the financial crisis and economic downturn right at the doorstep of
the banking institutions and the financial industry. The incredibly paternalistic line that the
crisis was caused in large part because "Mortgages had been sold to people
who couldn't afford, or understand them", was typical of his strategy
here. Obama’s strategy is to insulate
those who took bad loans or were (or are) living beyond their means from blame
for their, or society’s misfortunes, and to demonize the big, faceless, evil
banks who should really know better and should watch out for our best
interest. Obama said of the banks behavior,
"it was wrong, it was irresponsible".
I’m not suggesting the banks are blameless, but a bad loan is bad on
both sides, and the people who took those loans need to take a share of the
blame. If we all admit the mistakes we
made and learn from them, we can prevent another financial crisis. If we do not, then it is only a matter of
time before we find ourselves back in the same situation. Throughout his speech Obama maintained the narrative that the base of the economy was fine, but the financial industry and Wall Street were holding it back after being responsible for wrecking it in the first place. However, he made a conscious effort to avoid crossing into class warfare territory, and moderated the economic populism of his message by repeatedly including himself among the wealthy. Whenever he mentioned raising taxes on the wealthy, he made sure to phrase it as, “folks like me, who can afford to pay a little more”, or, “wealthy folks like me”. This is clearly going to be Obama’s strategy going forward. For another candidate (e.g. Romney), going out of your way to point out your own wealth would risk alienating middle class voters, but Obama doesn’t have to worry about that. He has a folksy appeal and his middle class roots are pretty well established. Last night he brought up the fact that his grandmother worked in a factory and his grandfather was a tank soldier in WWII. Also, although it is patently absurd that the color of someone’s skin play any role in how they are perceived, the fact is that his race insulates him from coming across as “highfalutin” or “out of touch” to many people. He is almost uniquely able to demonize Wall Street and criticize the wealthy while not coming across as mean spirited or envious. It will be tough for Republicans to get charges of class warfare against Obama to stick when the general election rolls around.
On
Energy Obama continued to beat the drum on making a bigger investment in renewables. He is on dangerous political ground
here. His argument that renewable energy
was not just an ecological concern but an economic concern was a decent one
last year, but after the Solyndra disaster, he risks sounding like he is out of
touch with economic reality by continuing to publicly insist that renewable
energy investment is going to be a corner stone of the economic recovery. In fact, I think he is weak on energy in
general, and I think he realizes it. The
statement that he is ordering the opening of 75% of our offshore oil reserves
was clearly meant to deflect the heat he knows he is going to take from his
decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. He
is between a rock and a hard place on energy.
He knows that fossil fuels, especially natural gas, are providing a much
needed shot of adrenaline to the economy, but he risks alienating his liberal
base if he is seen as being pro-fossil fuel.
This was definitely the weakest part of the speech, and it is where
Republicans need to hit the hardest this Autumn.
Ultimately
the Obama strategy is pinned on the bet that the most sunny, optimistic
candidate is going to win. This doesn’t
mean we should expect all sunshine and rainbows Obama, he isn’t going to pull
his punches when he’s laying into Congress or Wall Street, but he the overall
tone and focus will be positive. The big
risk with this strategy is that his optimism won’t connect with most
voters. If Obama’s economic optimism is
too far from the mood of the average voter on economic matters, then all of his
rosy speeches and flowery prose will just make him seem more and more out of
touch and in over his head. To that end,
the eventual Republican candidate would be wise to make this campaign about
statistics, facts, records, and concrete plans rather than style and speeches.
But then again, if the Mayans and the History channel are right, then this is all pointless anyway. I'm gonna go have some beer.
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