Quick take on SOTU

January 25, 2011

Posted by David Gregory at 11:29 PM

Immediate reaction to the speech tonight is that it felt flat. The reaction was polite, but hardly rousing. It seemed hard for the President to feed off the audience even as he offered a speech that was soaring in its approach and reach. I describe it as a call to arms to reclaim American exceptionalism. The President mentioned more than once that there are qualities that set our nation apart from others. He talked more than once about winning the economic future. This was a down payment on his reelection campaign theme which will be how America comes back from near financial collapse stronger than before. It's an optimistic message but one that overlooks how fractious the debate about innovation and competitiveness will be with Republicans in Congress.

The President came into this State of the Union address politically stronger than he's been: a 53 percent approval rating after his Tucson speech and leadership during the lame duck Congress. Tonight we see those same ingredients being mixed. He stands to gain GOP support on education reform, earmarks and tax reform (he called for corporate tax breaks).

But the fight will be over spending. Notice how cautious the President was on Social Security and picking up on the recommendations from the debt commission. A close adviser to the President told me they learned from health care that no party can take on a huge issue like entitlement spending unless and until the other party is on board. Will both parties simply wait each other out on the biggest areas of the federal budget?

Still the most important number tonight was 9.4 percent. That's the jobless rate. How much will it come down by 2012 and will it be enough for voters to credit the President with turning things around? Dating back 62 years when the government first started compiling labor stats, the three times the unemployment rate was higher than 7.4 percent, the President lost reelection.

Two years into his term, President Obama is counting on a different outcome.