Feb.08

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

The State of the Union Is Strong

That phrase is the clichéd way that presidents usually begin their annual State of the Union address. Joe Biden, for his part, stuck it at the end of his SOTU last night, so he mixed it up a little. Still, the headline isn't meant as a reference to that; it's our judgment of the speech as a whole. A few (expected) verbal gaffes notwithstanding, Biden delivered a speech that was overall very effective.

If you did not watch the address, and you wish to do so, here is the official White House feed:

As is customary these days, the feed includes a sign-language interpreter. Hopefully you don't actually need the interpreter, though, because she was filmed in a manner that often caused her hands to be outside the frame. Very odd. After all, exactly how many things did that cameraman need to get right? Aim the camera correctly and push the "on" button, and he blew 50% of that.

SOTUs are, by their nature, a little dry. And so, SOTU write-ups tend to be a little dry. We're going to change the format of our assessment a bit, to try to compensate for that:

• Jobs, Oil, Jobs, the Economy, Jobs, Bills Passed, Jobs: The State of the Union address is, in significant part, an opportunity for the president to take a victory lap. And Biden definitely took his, talking about several of the feathers that he has gathered for his cap in the past year. Naturally, he brought up the legislation that's been passed on his watch, and he talked about the positive economic indicators, and so forth. But, in a surprise to absolutely nobody, the thing he bragged about most was all the jobs that have been created in the past year. That came up over and over, and even the other braggadocio was often written to circle back to job creation. For example, when Biden talked about the CHIPS Act, he emphasized how many jobs it would create. Actually, it was more like how many jobs it would reclaim from abroad.
  
  
• Biden 1, Republicans 0: As we noted in our preview yesterday, this was the storyline we were most interested in, whether the President would take a velvet glove approach to the Republicans or if he would choose an iron fist instead. The answer is... both. He began the speech by congratulating Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on his election as speaker, which was classy, and set up a contrast with Donald Trump (who would never, ever be so gracious as to congratulate, say, Nancy Pelosi). Biden also recognized the other party leaders in Congress (though he called Chuck Schumer the Senate Minority Leader), and he acknowledged Pelosi's long and distinguished career.
  
  Throughout the address, Biden emphasized the value of teamwork and reaching across the aisle, using variants of the word "bipartisan" 11 times. That said, it was not all sunshine and rainbows. Anticipating the upcoming fight over the debt ceiling, Biden laid down the law and said he was not going to allow the country to be held hostage. Then, Biden warned that "some" Republicans (he pointedly avoided mentioning Sen. Rick Scott, R-FL, by name) want to sunset Social Security and Medicare. At that point, the Republicans in the audience booed and hissed, and Biden turned on his million-watt smile and bantered with them a bit. Then, in something of a masterstroke, he observed that he was glad that the GOP conference had come over to his side on the issue, declaring "I tell you, I enjoy conversion." He concluded that segment with the remark: "Let's all agree—and we apparently are—let's stand up for seniors." Game, set, and match for the President.
  
  This 2-minute portion was the highlight of the address; if you want to take a look at just that segment, it begins at the 37:00 mark. And, remarkably, the concluding portion was impromptu. Or, at very least, it doesn't appear in the official transcript released before the speech was delivered. When you are in politics for half a century, and on the largest stages the world has to offer, you learn a few tricks, it would seem.
  
  
• The Republican Response: Kevin McCarthy was on the dais, of course. His approach during the speech, primarily, was to look bored. The rest of the GOP conference was clearly under orders to follow his lead, and they largely did. That said, there was the jeers and booing during the "Social Security and Medicare" portion, which also included Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) shouting "Liar!" There was the fact that the Republicans, in our view, got outmaneuvered by Biden during that segment. And, equally noticeably, the Republican members often failed to stand during mention of things that the Party ostensibly stands for, like job creation. On the whole, we don't think the opposition clothed themselves in glory last night.
  
  
• Donald Who?: Although there were indirect references to Biden's predecessor, most obviously a discussion of how 25% of America's national debt was incurred during the previous administration, #45 was not mentioned by name. Presidents Obama and Bush (Jr.) got one mention each, by contrast.
  
  
• Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: SOTUs have, over the years, featured distortions of fact that can be broadly grouped into two categories: "politician lies" and "outright lies." Politician lies are when the president spins the truth a bit, to make his claims look a little better, or because presenting the whole story would be impractical in the context of a 60-to-90 minutes speech. Outright lies are total or near-total fabrications.
  
  Donald Trump, of course, had no problem with delivering outright lies. Biden, like most non-Trump presidents, limited himself to politician lies last night. Politifact was on the job, as were all the other fact checkers, and pretty much all of their comments were along the lines of "this needs context" or "this is mostly true."
  
  
• What Foreign Policy?: The SOTU lasted roughly 75 minutes. Less than 5 minutes of that was devoted to foreign policy, mostly Ukraine and China (though no mention of the balloon). This is a reminder that, no matter what the commentariat says in the moment, foreign policy generally does not influence voters much, excepting the successful or unsuccessful prosecution of a war in which the U.S. is involved directly (i.e., American boots on the ground).
  
  
• Fountain of Youth: As Biden worked the aisle before the speech, he was hunched over a bit, and we could not help but think how very old he looked. But once he was at the Speaker's podium, he lit up, and seemed at least 10 years younger.
  
  
• Best Red Meat for the Democratic Base: How about this line: "Look, capitalism without competition is not capitalism, it's extortion." Interestingly, according to the transcript, the final word of that sentence was supposed to be "exploitation." We don't know if Biden misspoke, or he decided to ad lib. But we think the version he actually delivered is the more effective one.
  
  
• Best Joke Line: Unlike the president he used to work for/with, Biden isn't particularly good at bon mots. But he did have a pretty good bit early in the speech about the fact that the First Lady is attending the Super Bowl and he's not: "By the way, Chief Justice, I may need a court order. She gets to go to the game tomorrow, next week. I have to stay home. Gotta work something out here."
  
  
• A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: Imagine if, instead of being able write about the SOTU, we had to choose a single frame from the broadcast that tells the tale. Were that to be the situation, this is the frame we'd choose:
  
  
  
  
• 2024 Preview: When the Biden reelection campaign announces that its official slogan will be "Finish the Job," nobody who saw this speech should be surprised, since the President used that turn of phrase 12 different times in the speech.
  
  
• Missing Persons: Who was most notable by their absence? Perhaps Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, who was the subject of the usual sidebar stories, since he was the designated survivor. But if you don't count him, then the most noticeable no-shows were the four members of the Supreme Court (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor) who apparently had other things to do last night.
  
  
• Look at Me! Award: The SOTU is a rare chance for members of Congress to see and be seen on national TV, which means that the members who are known for seeking attention really have to up their games. Two of them did yesterday. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is apparently obsessed with the Chinese balloon, reportedly carried a white balloon around the Capitol all day yesterday. She also made a scene during the address itself, as noted, shouting "Liar!" on at least one occasion (and possibly more).
  
  Meanwhile, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) arrived in a yellow dress with large, ruffled sleeves that seems pretty clearly designed to catch folks' eyes:
  
  
  
  Knowing full well that people would be watching, she then seated herself between two of her Republican colleagues, which certainly makes a statement. The Senator is known for being fashion-forward, and clearly knows better than us what is, and is not, fashionable. Because to us, that dress does not read as "cutting edge of fashion." No, it reads as "Carmen Miranda reincarnated." Though we concede the Senator is missing the hat made of bananas, pineapple and other fruit.
  
  
• Best Backstage Drama: As we've noted in the Saturday Q&A, the seating for the SOTU is largely unassigned, outside a few high-ranking dignitaries, like the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That means that a member who wants a great seat has to show up way early, and camp out. And guess who did so? Yep, Rep. "George Santos" (R-NY). He attempted to use that vantage point to get some camera time of himself shaking hands with later-arriving senators. And one of those senators, namely Mitt Romney (R-UT), took umbrage. It's not clear exactly what Romney said, but lip readers saw "You don't belong here."
  
  
• Who Was that Masked Man?: Given that the audience is tightly packed during the SOTU, and given that many audience members are up there in years, and given that there's still a pandemic underway, masks would seem to be called for. However, the only person who could be seen with a mask on was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). The Senator reminds us, once again, that he just does not give a s**t what anyone else thinks or does.
  
  
• The Republican Response: If you would like to watch the response delivered by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR), you can see it here (it's a little less than 15 minutes long). As we noted in our preview, she's just not a good speaker. In particular, she's not used to reading off a teleprompter, and it shows. If you want a specific example of what we're talking about, take a look at the portion that runs from 11:30 to 12:10. That was written to be an uplifting, rah-rah moment, and Sanders sounds like she's at a funeral. Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama would have turned that passage into a meme, as opposed to an "in memoriam." Also, it seems that for some reason, whoever was handling the broadcast greenscreened the Governor in front of a picture of... some room in the governor's mansion? Visually, it looked odd, like she was delivering the speech over Zoom. Not helping dispel the "Zoom" feel was that Sanders chose to be seated for the address.
  
  In any event, it was mostly red meat for the base, as these things tend to be. Oh, and if you had 2:48 in your "when is the first time Sanders will use the word 'woke'" pool, you're a winner. That's when she began leaning into the culture wars—which would prove to be the main theme of the address—with the observation that Joe Biden is "the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can't even tell you what a woman is."
  
  A secondary theme of the speech was that it's time for a "new generation" of leadership. Now, it makes sense that Sanders would hit on that point, since she's the youngest governor in America right now, and Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history. That said, she's fully on board with Trump 2024. Trump, as you may recall, is 76 years old, and is most certainly not a "new generation" of leadership.
  
  Sanders did say one thing that just about everyone can agree with: "The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy." It is not clear to us if she realizes that Democrats across the nation read/heard that, and said: "Boy, you got that right."

And there you have it; another State of the Union in the books. CNN's Flash Poll says that the great majority of viewers (71%) liked what they heard, so maybe the speech will move the needle on Biden's approval (though we still doubt it). On a similar note, we are planning to run some reader comments on the speech tomorrow or Friday, so if you have them, please speak up! (Z)