Obama's major points last night were about the government's role in the economy. Obama wants the government to invest money in certain sectors of the economy, like clean energy, in order to create jobs and compete with countries like China. The speech was definitely boring to me, since I have heard these same things over and over again for years now, but it was a good political move. Obama in putting Congressional Republicans in a difficult position, because they need to cut government spending to please their political base, but they also want to be seen as creating jobs. Obama is setting the stage for his re-election campaign by positioning himself as a common-sense Democrat who wants to invest in job creation.
Last night Obama demonstrated the power to persuade that Neustadt described. Obama cannot pass legislation himself, so his economic agenda will require Congress's consent. Technically the state of the union address is supposed to be directed at Congress, but at this point the target audience is really the voting public. Obama went to the public with his economic agenda, and hopefully the public will put pressure on Congress to cooperate. He certainly seemed to use his power to persuade effectively, and at this point I think he has gained some political capital, even though he has lost some of his ability to implement policies since the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives.
That's a good point about Obama setting the stage for his re-election. He is promising a lot to the American people. It seems to be too much to achieve in his two years left in office. He's creating an agenda too large to finish in two years perhaps setting himself up for re-election to finish his job.
ReplyDeleteFrancis,
ReplyDeleteIn addition to "going public" do you see any of Neustadt's bargaining power in Obama's speech? I agree with you that the main audience seemed to be the American people, but I also thought it was interesting that he indicated he was open to suggestions from Congressional Republicans in some areas but would not negotiate in others. I wonder how he hopes to mobilize the public to use the "political capital" you think he has gained from this speech. Sounds tough to me.
I agree that the idea of gaining political capital seemed key here. More than anything, I think that was the main purpose of this year's address considering the major mid-term losses. That being said, I agree that it's not going to be easy to actually lose any capital that he gained. This is where Neustadt's theory will really come into play, more so than it did in the speech. Will he use any political capital he has to strike deals with the Republicans in order to persuade them to give him something he wants or will use this capital to appeal to the public only?
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