Posted on 01/24/2012 8:34:23 AM PST by tobyhill
Even with the major distraction of a Republican presidential primary, tonight’s State of the Union speech will guaranteed to, however briefly, capture the undivided attention of all political junkies. They’re not wrong: The annual tradition does matter. And yet the conventional wisdom about the importance of the speech tends to be almost exactly backwards.
You can see the typical press approach in the New York Times preview of the speech earlier this week. The piece is almost entirely focused on Barack Obama’s strategies to win the American public to his side; we’re told that he’s expected to “dra[w] a stark contrast between the parties” and to “define the election” in various ways. The Washington Post says that “how he delivers the argument will test his rhetorical dexterity and set the tone for the year ahead,” and focuses on the speech as a campaign document.
But the truth is that presidential speeches rarely have much effect on public opinion. For one thing, most people already have opinions about the president, so they’re not particularly open to changing their mind even when they hear something they like. What’s more, most people are partisans. If they’re Democrats, they probably already like the president, and what he says is unlikely to change that. And if they’re Republicans, they’ll tend to reject whatever he says—if, that is, they listen to the speech at all. If they don’t, those Republicans are likely to only hear about the speech through the partisan press, and they probably won’t be hearing good things from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. (Of course, the same is true in reverse when there’s a Republican in the White House.)
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
To make the rebuttal to the State of the Union interesting and relevant, we should let each of our 4 remaining candidates give short responses to it.
That would be a good use of the time.
I wish Bonehead would just huddle up with all the pubbies and play poker in the back room & ignore the pretender.
He doesn’t have the stones, though.
Too bad.
The 1%? Give me a break, it’s all the taxpayers who will see an increase in the amount that it costs you to work and live.
I gave 20 thousand in taxes, none of which I will see again
Or hey! Just everyone show up with vomit-bags, and
“pray into them” whenever he lies...that’d be excellent!
There’s a great need for prayer. There’d be A LOT of praying.
When does the media ask “What’s the difference between a wealth tax and an income tax?”
Some people call it the SOTU, I call it STFU.
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