DemFromCT’s main page post today snarkingly titled “Shocking Gallup Poll Suggests Obama Should Keep His Day Job” showed Obama’s presidential approval ratings rose from 59% on the 23rd of Feb to 67% by the 26th. Republican approval of Obama leapt from 27% --where it has been since taking office-- to 42%, not only higher than Bush’s exiting approval from most of his own party, as DemFromCT noted, but it shows Republican tactics, memes and framing are losing ground with their already reduced base to where they could be left with the rump of a rump of a party.
Of course that makes us feel good, but that’s not the aim here. I’m interested in how Obama pulled this political coup off. I have never seen issues thought so partisan to one party to be framed so powerfully in the rhetoric of the other party.
Pushing ones approval up from 86% to 90% among Democrats, recovering Independent’s approval back up to 62% from its low point of 54%, and at the same time increasing approval with Republicans to within sight of a majority from them is a rather stunning feat of political legerdemain. Doing so after a month long all out attack by Republicans and the corporate media on every plan he’s advanced -- and that dragged his pre-speech approval down significantly—is also an amazing feat. It’s a feat worth some careful analysis.
Turning the effects of more than a month long drum beat of criticism and near unanimous opposition from the Republican party and all its freeper cohorts and radio hotheads around and then some with a single speech, well, that’s just political magic. We will someday be talking not about Clinton or Reagan as America’s “Great Communicator” president, but Obama. I think historians and political scientists will be studying this first Joint Congressional speech as closely as they are already studying Obama’s breakthrough campaign organization and its use of the Internet.
True, Bush saw such a dramatic shift in approval too from all sectors in his first year of office, but only after 9-11. America had to be attacked by terrorists, and then he took cynical advantage of this tragedy-sparked opportunity to enact his agenda. Like the presidency itself, he did not earn it. But Obama’s first address to Congress sparked most if not all this change. The speech was a set up to his first budget, and laid the political groundwork for it by undermining his opposition and bolstering his allies. Unlike the terrorist attack which handed security obsessed Republicans their opportunity on a plate and silenced all opposition with a single horrifying act, the economic crisis would normally weaken any Democratic president’s agenda of costly reforms to healthcare, education and social services. But Obama stood this common wisdom, and as with so much common wisdom before it, on its ear.
So, how did Obama engineer this near-magical outcome?
First, take the opening line:
“Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the First Lady of the United States:
I've come here tonight not only to address the distinguished men and women in this great chamber, but to speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here.”
In that first clause Obama made his first brilliant shift of focus. By acknowledging the First Lady right out of the gate he reminded America of their extraordinary relationship, he underlined the key importance family has to him and called out to the family values voters that his commitment to family is not just a matter of political convenience but a fundamental fact of his life, primary in his conscious thought. This was his first nearly subliminal hook into Republican viewers. It also humanized him and laid the basis for his emphasis on the impact of the economic crisis on families. And for Democrats he also highlighted the fact that two women stood behind him, not only the First Lady but also the Speaker of the House (literally, in her case), and he reminded women and minorities that he was their president.
And one more subtle thing in that first sentence: Obama demonstrated twice, in acknowledging his wife and in acknowledging the voters watching that he knew who he worked for, who he owed for putting him where he stood. He also telegraphed that same thought to his political viewers in the audience, for they too were being watched by voters. You can see this hit home on the Republicans a bit later in the speech as they began to think about what viewers might be thinking about their sitting, standing or clapping or not clapping at different parts of the speech, and how Obama used that to throw them off balance and trap them.
The end of that first sentence converted this speech from an insider’s address to a joint session of Congress focused on the business of state or party affairs into a personal first report to the voters on what he had found out about the state of the government during his first weeks in charge. It set up the stage for Obama to dress down the Republicans who had been running things, but it did so in a very subtle manner by implying that the previous administration had not “frankly and directly” spoken to the men and women who sent them there.
The first clause in his next sentence reinforced that Americans were watching (reinforcing this point on his Congressional viewers too. BTW, I am taking the text and broadcast from the Huffington Post site that links to the msnbc broadcast. At http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... ) That first full paragraph is a masterpiece of political psychology. By focusing not just on the economy, but the economy as a CONCERN rising above all others, and “rightly so” he emphasized, he targeted the emotions of his viewers. By bringing in friends, family and neighbors he personalized fears even if not personally felt by the viewers. Since polls show 70% of viewers either themselves or had family or neighbors who had lost jobs or houses, Obama reinforced the truth of what he was saying as viewers thought of family or neighbors hit by the recession, even if they so far are okay. (This was a “don’t think of an elephant” tactic—he put the impact of the recession in their minds, setting up the “solutions and actions” section of the speech).
In that para he added to those who knew someone like this by eliciting those worried about job security, SME business people, and people with college aged or soon to be college age children worried about affording college. That first full para got at least 90% of viewers thinking this speech was not only to them, but about them, their family, their neighbors, and their situation.
His final sentence reinforced the reality of the recession and undermined the Rs. America is not just a nation of whiners, as Phil Gramm asserted. The economic crisis is not just a crisis of confidence as Republicans and the corporate media keep repeating, it’s real and everywhere and affecting them.
Then Obama moved to express his confidence in THEM. Not an abstract America, or the American worker, or the American people or some fictional Joe the Plumber (call to mind McCain’s speeches), but “We will rebuild, We will recover” and his next para appealed almost directly to Republican memes while not alienating his Democratic supporters:
The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.
The America firsters must have purred at this rhetoric of nationalistic pride. It also appeals to the quintessential American belief in self-improvement and self-empowerment. These are sentences that would have made Reagan proud. But Obama set them up for his solutions, Democratic solutions, Government driven solutions directly opposite to what Republican leaders propose. His final sentence here and the whole next para makes the pivot from Republican tinged rhetoric to Democratic solutions explicit.
“What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.”
This directly challenges the “party of no” tactics, the united Republican opposition demonstrated just days before in the stimulus package vote. It implies that was a cowardly act (something red blooded Republicans hate) and irresponsible. Obama then drives this point home.
Now, if we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that for too long, we have not always met these responsibilities - as a government or as a people. I say this not to lay blame or look backwards, but because it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.
These two sentences above are brilliant in disarming Republican voters. Honestly, even Republicans like George Will and so many more Rs admit Bush was unbelievably irresponsible. It directly attacks the idea that Obama is acting irresponsibly with his spending plans, but it clearly implies that Obama is taking adult action necessitated by the predicament we were all put into by the Republican administration that preceded him. He drives this “irresponsible behavior is the source of our problems” meme home in the next two paragraphs:
The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank. We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for. And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.
In other words, we have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.
Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.
The day of reckoning phrase above is Biblical in its origin, and directly impacts the Bible oriented believers dominant in today’s Republican party. Those two paragraphs describe the Bush era to a T, and “honest” Republicans admit it. But it also hits the “Age of Me” Clinton era too if you read it carefully, again placating Republican listeners who saw Clinton as the epitome of personal irresponsibility. But the first reference to energy clearly distinguishes Obama from every president between him and Carter in energy policy, and so too on the reference to regulations, for Clinton got pushed into gutting regulations and buying into Republican corporate versions of unregulated globalization and free trade. Both Rs and non-progressive D members of Congress knew they were getting reamed for these policies by Obama, but especially Rs at this point because these policies are the ones they championed, pursued, imposed and supported. They sit there utterly silent.
When Obama springs his trap on Republicans they hardly knew what to do: sit, stand, clap, sit silent, frown. Most just froze in their seats.
It's an agenda that begins with jobs.
Democrats leap to their feet clapping. Republicans, lulled into thinking they were still being chided, sat glued to their seats while the president made jobs his top priority. But remember the viewers? They got hooked into watching this speech by thinking about their jobs, their family member’s jobs, and their neighbor’s jobs. Now the President says his agenda to fix this Republican mess begins with jobs, the very heart and soul of their fear. And the Congressional Republicans are fixed in their seats for all to see. Obama keeps them there:
As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by President's Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government - I don't. Not because I'm not mindful of the massive debt we've inherited - I am. I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardships. In fact, a failure to act would have worsened our long-term deficit by assuring weak economic growth for years. That's why I pushed for quick action. And tonight, I am grateful that this Congress delivered, and pleased to say that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is now law.
The Rs are in full dilemma. They cannot support his call to make jobs number one by clapping and standing because they opposed the stimulus plan, but it makes them appear to be opposing jobs, not disapproving of the Act. It was a brilliant trap, brilliantly executed. He drives the point home with illustration after illustration, including R voters concerned with crime, giving numbers of police whose jobs were saved in Minneapolis by the bill. And still the Congressional Rs sit on their hands, even as police and teachers see their jobs saved. Why do Rs hate police and teachers so, viewers have to ask? He specifies the tax cuts that will help college education, and there sits the Rs Senate Minority leader on his hands, not even applauding TAX CUTS!
Because of this plan, 95% of the working households in America will receive a tax cut - a tax cut that you will see in your paychecks beginning on April 1st.
Because of this plan, families who are struggling to pay tuition costs will receive a $2,500 tax credit for all four years of college. And Americans who have lost their jobs in this recession will be able to receive extended unemployment benefits and continued health care coverage to help them weather this storm.
This is what has set up the ground swell of anger at R governors who won’t take the stimulus money and change laws barring unemployment assistance to groups the bill targeted. Then Obama makes another brilliant move to enlist Republican leaning voters watching at home. He even enlists their distrust of Washington while making his point.
I know there are some in this chamber and watching at home who are skeptical of whether this plan will work. I understand that skepticism. Here in Washington, we've all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending. And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right.
That is why I have asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort - because nobody messes with Joe. I have told each member of my Cabinet as well as mayors and governors across the country that they will be held accountable by me and the American people for every dollar they spend. I have appointed a proven and aggressive Inspector General to ferret out any and all cases of waste and fraud. And we have created a new website called recovery.gov so that every American can find out how and where their money is being spent.
The Recovery.gov move was utterly brilliant. The conspiracy leaning R viewers who distrust government and government spending can go see for themselves how and where the money goes. It sets up a complete contrast with the secretiveness of the Bush and R administrations. It makes people rush by the thousands per minute to find out exactly how and where the plan affects them and their neighbors. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell and the Rs look like utter partisans, utterly out of touch and unsympathetic to the concerns of viewers, and anti-education and TAX CUTS to boot. Watch the address on the msnbc feed, and you will see at this point the Rs are sitting there while Ds applaud THEIR action to save YOUR job. No wonder the Kos poll this week shows a soaring 13 point improvement in the approval spread of the Congressional Democrats and no improvement at all for Congressional Republicans from their basement level 17 percent favorable.
Obama sets up the same trap for the Congressional Republicans after he spells out his bold plans. His plans directly address the concerns of the viewers while dissing the obstructions of the Congressional Rs over spending. And he makes that point of accountability and responsibility over spending with reference to the VP leading the spending oversight group and drives it home over and over. So Cheney leads a secret meeting on energy policy while Biden leads an open team ensuring accountability. Another contrast that undermines the Congressional Republicans. Then he sets them up well and truly:
First, we are creating a new lending fund that represents the largest effort ever to help provide auto loans, college loans, and small business loans to the consumers and entrepreneurs who keep this economy running.
Second, we have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and re-finance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values - Americans who will now be able to take advantage of the lower interest rates that this plan has already helped bring about. In fact, the average family who re-finances today can save nearly $2000 per year on their mortgage.
Third, we will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times. And when we learn that a major bank has serious problems, we will hold accountable those responsible, force the necessary adjustments, provide the support to clean up their balance sheets, and assure the continuity of a strong, viable institution that can serve our people and our economy.
Even the Congressional Rs have to start clapping and standing at this point. But then, he turns the knife.
I understand that on any given day, Wall Street may be more comforted by an approach that gives banks bailouts with no strings attached, and that holds nobody accountable for their reckless decisions. But such an approach won't solve the problem. And our goal is to quicken the day when we re-start lending to the American people and American business and end this crisis once and for all.
R voters pitched a fit on the no strings attached TARP bill and that is one big reason even the most partisan of R voters disapproved of Bush. Obama played on this anger, and focused it on the Congressional Rs who supported Bush in lockstep, just as they now oppose him in lockstep. He also subtly rings the bell of nationalism, implying that Wall Street is somehow anti-American people and anti-American business. And he drives the spike into the Congressional Rs, in no uncertain terms, even while enlisting R voters who were infuriated by the Bush TARP. But this time the Congressional Rs have to stand up and clap while Obama excoriates bankers AND THE Rs IRRESPONSIBLE TARP oversight. Congressional Rs are beginning to think about how the voters and viewers are reacting to their reactions (maybe the Twitter replies are starting to arrive).
With the Congressional Rs badly off balance, he sets them up again:
I understand that when the last administration asked this Congress to provide assistance for struggling banks, Democrats and Republicans alike were infuriated by the mismanagement and results that followed. So were the American taxpayers. So was I.
So I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you - I get it.
But I also know that in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger, or yield to the politics of the moment. My job - our job - is to solve the problem. Our job is to govern with a sense of responsibility. I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive, but I will do whatever it takes to help the small business that can't pay its workers or the family that has saved and still can't get a mortgage.
That's what this is about. It's not about helping banks - it's about helping people. Because when credit is available again, that young family can finally buy a new home. And then some company will hire workers to build it. And then those workers will have money to spend, and if they can get a loan too, maybe they'll finally buy that car, or open their own business. Investors will return to the market, and American families will see their retirement secured once more.
And then, having acknowledged and even elicited voter anger, D and R voter anger alike and including himself in it, and personalizing how his planned action will help them, Obama pitches back to the responsibility theme, and sets up the Congressional Rs again.
So I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary. Because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession. And to ensure that a crisis of this magnitude never happens again, I ask Congress to move quickly on legislation that will finally reform our outdated regulatory system. It is time to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation, and punishes short-cuts and abuse.
He calls for bipartisan support and makes it impossible for the Congressional Rs to applaud, but makes it impossible for them NOT to applaud. They have no choice but to give a standing ovation to Obama’s call for re-regulation! But wasn’t deregulation the R solution? The Congressional Rs are beginning to realize by this time that they are being set up, and publicly humiliated by this president in this address. The traps are springing all about them, and they are beginning to get desperate. But Obama shows no mercy, couching his budget not as a list of Democratic spending priorities, but a plan based on American history and a belief in, wait for it: Government leadership. And the Congressional Rs find themselves forced into standing and clapping again and again.
In the next few days, I will submit a budget to Congress. So often, we have come to view these documents as simply numbers on a page or laundry lists of programs. I see this document differently. I see it as a vision for America - as a blueprint for our future.
This set up for discussion of the budget perks up ears of viewers (a Government budget as blueprint for the American future, a vision?) and sets up the Rs:
My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we've inherited - a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.
Remember Bush and his R dominated House and Senate? This is ALL their fault, not you the R voter or me, the Democratic President. And not supporting mutual sacrifice in this budget is an irresponsible act:
Given these realities, everyone in this chamber - Democrats and Republicans - will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars. And that includes me.
But now the trap. Irresponsibility is in NOT spending on important things, even big projects. Irresponsibility is NOT taking a historically bold step in the face of this historic challenge of economic collapse. Irresponsibility is NOT supporting bold government action.
But that does not mean we can afford to ignore our long-term challenges. I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves; that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity.
For history tells a different story. History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry. From the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age. In the wake of war and depression, the GI Bill sent a generation to college and created the largest middle-class in history. And a twilight struggle for freedom led to a nation of highways, an American on the moon, and an explosion of technology that still shapes our world.
In each case, government didn't supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive.
The next sentence twists the knife into Congressional Rs, using R memes of peril and opportunity to underline the opposite point, that government can and must lead in opening up opportunity just as Rs agree Government must lead in facing peril.
We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril, and claimed opportunity from ordeal.
Obama sets up his priorities, Democratic priorities, using the rhetoric of Republican nationalism and opportunity seeking. He raises China, so beloved of GOP big business globalizers for its cheap labor and anti union stances, as a counter example of government action on energy efficiency. He invokes our competitors Japan, Germany and Korea and turns the cause of alternative energy into a patriotic pro-American crusade.
Now we must be that nation again. That is why, even as it cuts back on the programs we don't need, the budget I submit will invest in the three areas that are absolutely critical to our economic future: energy, health care, and education.
It begins with energy.
We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet, it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we've fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it. New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea.
Well I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders - and I know you don't either. It is time for America to lead again.
This is a brilliant move that also enlists Democrats and Independents along with patriotic Republicans. I have never seen an issue thought so partisan to one party to be framed so powerfully in the rhetoric of the other party. At this point Congressional Rs must have been feeling very sick to their stomachs. But Obama continues this enlisting of Republican rhetoric in the cause of Democratic priorities, particularly healthcare. This is set up as a budgeting/business issue, not a moral issue. “We cannot afford to put healthcare reform on hold,” he says, and the Rs have to give him a standing ovation. After all, aren’t they the Rs calling for return to that old timey R belief in fiscal responsibility? And then he springs the SCHIP vote that forces Rs to stand or sit, depending on how they voted, but now the Congressional Rs are on alert and off balance, some standing, some sitting. They are beginning to lose confidence in their ability to parse his prose and score cheap shots with silence or applause. Obama then refers to that legendary Republican president Teddy Roosevelt to press the urgency of healthcare reform! What Republican can sit to such an appeal? And they cannot. Congressional Rs giving a standing ovation to a call for urgent healthcare reform. Now that is magic!
By this time you can began to see the rueful respect the Congressional Rs are giving Obama. And again he sets them up, turning to education reform, announcing major spending increases couched in the rhetoric of accountability and reform and yes, patriotism. First, the Democratic spending priorities, focused on a repudiation of Dick Cheney’s notorious vote against Head Start and the Democrats almost patented support for college funding:
Already, we have made an historic investment in education through the economic recovery plan. We have dramatically expanded early childhood education and will continue to improve its quality, because we know that the most formative learning comes in those first years of life. We have made college affordable for nearly seven million more students. And we have provided the resources necessary to prevent painful cuts and teacher layoffs that would set back our children's progress.
So the Rs are sitting on their hands, but then he turns, enlisting the Republican rhetoric of education reform.
But we know that our schools don't just need more resources. They need more reform. That is why this budget creates new incentives for teacher performance; pathways for advancement, and rewards for success. We'll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. And we will expand our commitment to charter schools.
And then the masterstroke. Making education patriotic.
It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country - and this country needs and values the talents of every American. 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.
Education as patriotism? Support of education as patriotic? Republican viewers have been framed, well and truly framed, or reframed, in this case. How can Congressional Rs oppose budget spending for patriotic purposes? Obama then nails the R voters with his appeal to responsible parenting, for volunteering (send me the Hatch-Kennedy bill, he says).
These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our children. But it is up to us to ensure they walk through them. In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child. I speak to you not just as a President, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our children's education must begin at home.
His repeated referencing of bi-partisanship and combination of red-blooded Republican-baiting American patriotism is making it increasingly impossible for Congressional Rs to coherently frame their opposition to this man and this plan. They are desperate for an opportunity to demonstrate their party’s views. And again, Obama traps them.
There is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children. And that is the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay.
AT LAST, you can almost hear them screech, something we can make our point with! The Congressional Rs leap to their feet, they clap loud and long and start shouting their approval, then Obama laughs, extemporaneously shouts, “I agree, absolutely” and says “See, I know I can get some consensus in here” and then turns the knife, and Democrats leap to their feet, laughing and shouting in turn, at the first clause of the next sentence!
With the deficit we inherited,” Obama says, continuing, disarming the Rs and any R leaning viewers who may have fallen for the Congressional Republicans ploy of selective clapping,
the cost of the crisis we face, and the long-term challenges we must meet, it has never been more important to ensure that as our economy recovers, we do what it takes to bring this deficit down. I'm proud that we passed the recovery plan free of earmarks, and I want to pass a budget next year that ensures that each dollar we spend reflects only our most important national priorities.
Another reference to the stimulus bill here, and Rs are again on the back foot, off balance, and then Obama pivots again on a dime and makes a stunning statement for a Congressional R to oppose but loaded with poison for Republicans, almost off the cuff:
Yesterday, I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office.
Oh my god, they must be thinking, cut the deficit in half by when?!! Obama expects a second term, takes it so for granted and expressed with such confidence that he states it baldly in a throwaway line. This has to throw them off balance,thinking about the political implications of this sentence, but Obama then hits Rs with the implication that Bush and the Rs were wasting TRILLIONS of dollars, and not on the Iraq War either. The old so popular Reagan lines of government waste, fraud and abuse have just been nailed to R foreheads:
My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time. But we're starting with the biggest lines. We have already identified two trillion dollars in savings over the next decade.
In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them. We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use. We will root out the waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.
These are a neat mix of old Republican complaints of sources of waste (education, Medicare) and key Republican sources of campaign graft, agribusiness, big iron weaponry, and multi-national corporations. (not the mom and pop businesses, but wait for it, Obama is setting up a very neat trap on this). This is a political threat of the first order to Rs, and Obama just did it using their rhetoric of waste, fraud and abuse.
Then Obama sets up a two-fer. He hits Rs for dishonesty and acknowledges the price of war, tying the two psychologically neatly together.
Finally, because we're also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules - and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.
Having made the Rs look not only dishonest and deceitful but ungrateful to those who paid the price of our defense, Obama drives the point home, and adds the charge that they dishonored American values on their watch.
As we meet here tonight, our men and women in uniform stand watch abroad and more are readying to deploy. To each and every one of them, and to the families who bear the quiet burden of their absence, Americans are united in sending one message: we honor your service, we are inspired by your sacrifice, and you have our unyielding support. To relieve the strain on our forces, my budget increases the number of our soldiers and Marines. And to keep our sacred trust with those who serve, we will raise their pay, and give our veterans the expanded health care and benefits that they have earned.
To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend - because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America. That is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists - because living our values doesn't make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger. And that is why I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture.
So much for the values voters and the Rs as the party of the values voter. So much for the military as the private exclusive playground of the Republican Party. And again, the Congressional Republicans had no choice but to stand and applaud this repudiation of one of their main Bush era stances, the support of torture and the slighting of after battle care.
Then Obama makes his most brilliant move yet. He calls on a bank president of all people, Leonard Abess, who distributed his 60 million dollars in profits as bonuses to those who helped him make them, as an example of the kind of business and kind of banker and kind of person he admires. Democrats are not anti business, he demonstrated, they are pro business that has the community and workers and American values and virtues at heart. Having set up the appeal to values, and having set up the Congressional Republicans who had to stand and applaud his attack on Wall Street and Bush’s irresponsible TARP earlier, viewers cannot help but regard Obama and the Democrats as examples of real values versus the faked and confused hypocrisy of the Congressional Rs.
You might note this banker example is from Florida, whose Republican Governor Crist pointedly supported the stimulus package. Crist also got a tirade of criticism from the R wingnuts, which makes his second personal example the most brilliant move of all. He sites a young girl from a school in South Carolina, sitting next to his wife, and reads the phrase she appended to a heart rending account of her decaying school. This phrase once characterized the mythic heart of American character: “We are not quitters.” It’s a John Wayne line, a Richard Nixon line, a Republican line, used to undercut the Republican Governor of the South Carolina in just about the most powerfully emotional way possible. Educators, those concerned for the next generation, minorities, poor folks, and Americans at heart had to stand up at this point and cheer for that girl and that attitude. And so the Congressional Rs found themselves giving a standing ovation to an explicit repudiation of SC Governor Sanford who had been a leader in opposing the stimulus package. And they applauded a line that so much as stated NOT supporting Obama’s budget was tantamount to being a quitter, someone who had given up on America and who opposed the American dream.
This, my friends, was a message framing out of a Republican nightmare. And to drive that final point home over and over Obama ended with lines that tied the whole speech and framing into a patriotic, historic opportunity. He turns back to that first sentence that called the members of Congress to remember who sent them there and what they expected from them, and by this time, every member of Congress knows damn well most viewers agree with Obama:
These words and these stories tell us something about the spirit of the people who sent us here. They tell us that even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, resilience, decency, and a determination that perseveres; a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity.
Their resolve must be our inspiration. Their concerns must be our cause. And we must show them and all our people that we are equal to the task before us.
I know that we haven't agreed on every issue thus far, and there are surely times in the future when we will part ways. But I also know that every American who is sitting here tonight loves this country and wants it to succeed. That must be the starting point for every debate we have in the coming months, and where we return after those debates are done. That is the foundation on which the American people expect us to build common ground.
The end of this speech is a rhetorical flourish, a promise, an expression of hope, that will resonate up to the 2010 elections even as this speech so much as announced President Obama will not only run for a second term, he has plans for it already:
And if we do - if we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis; if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity; if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then someday years from now our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, "something worthy to be remembered." Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.
The final sentence includes a personal blessing, perhaps even a blessing on the Congress, not just the usual “God bless America.” Watch and read this speech carefully and you can see why CNN found 92% had positive feelings about the speech, and two thirds of viewers had highly favorable views.
This speech cut the ground under Republicans by adeptly stealing their most popular memes and framing. Its many adept traps had to affect their confidence. They will be less likely to thoughtless attack, especially after Obama so thoroughly targeted the SC governor and rewarded the FL governor. He explicitly threatened the sources of their funding (agribusiness, Wall Street, big iron defense contractors) and let them know their torment has only begun in the first month of his first term. This was a masterful display of a master of politics and political speech.
This was perhaps the most politically adept speech in American history, and we were there.
First time on Rec List! (Cue Madonna's "Like a Virgin") Thanks folks. Didn't think a long piece like this would ever do that. Don't you political junkies have better things to do?