Blogs and Briefings
The battle lines are drawn
Connect’s Washington correspondent, Caroline Gordon, gives her verdict on Tuesday’s State of the Union.
27 January
There’s no doubt in my mind that the person with the hardest job at Tuesday’s State of the Union address was John Boehner, the embattled Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives. Positioned directly behind the President for the full hour-long speech, he put in an impressive performance - looking respectful, but only just, while Barack Obama powered up his rhetoric with talk of tax increases for millionaires and the success of his healthcare reform legislation, both loathed by Republicans.
President Obama's job itself was far from easy. A year of relentless political scrapping with a non-compromising Republican House has taken its toll. But just in time for his third State of the Union speech, a combination of factors gave Obama a boost.
First, at the end of last year, the White House successfully backed GOP Representatives into a corner over an extension to a payroll tax cut. Somehow Boehner and his party had ended up arguing against extending a tax cut that directly benefited millions of working middle class Americans. Ultimately they were forced into a humiliating climbdown. With Congressional approval ratings at a historic low of under 10%, this fight allowed Obama to show that House Republicans were more interested in playing politics than looking out for the American people.
Second, the ongoing Republican primary race has been the gift that has kept on giving. Front-runner Mitt Romney had been trying to focus his campaign squarely on the President, barely bothering to lower his sights to his Republican opponents. But when Romney was forced to squirm, then disclose, how much tax he pays - about half in percentage terms of the average working American - the debate over ‘fairness’ took a new and surprising turn, at least in terms of how things are viewed over here.
So Obama took his moment, and for the most part, took it well. With a renewed fire in his belly, he laid out the parameters of the 2012 election. His key message is that America needs to become a place where ‘everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules’. In short, I’m for you, the regular guy; they’re for them, the mega-rich.
It’s an approach he has been pushing for a while; during the summer debt-ceiling negotiations the White House was pushing for the richest to contribute more, which at the time seemed an impossible dream. But now it’s better packaged, better timed - helped in part by Romney’s disclosures and billionaire Warren Buffet publicly recognising that it is wrong that he pays a lower level of tax than his secretary. Obama took the fight directly to the Republican hopefuls who have accused him of the "politics of envy", saying: ‘Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.’
Given the hostility between the President and Congress, it is unlikely that much of this State of the Union will end up becoming law. Too much compromise would be needed for that to happen. In truth, this was less of a Queen’s speech and more of a stump speech, one that we’ll no doubt here countless times over the coming eight months. But at least for the rest of the year, poor old John Boehner won’t have 38 million people watching him pretend to look interested.
