President Obama gave the State of the Union (SOTU) address last night, with Representative Paul Ryan giving the GOP response and Representative Michele Bachmann giving the Tea Party response. Part 1 focuses on Obama’s address while Part 2 focuses on Ryan’s and Bachmann’s statements. Welcome to Part 2.
Let me start by saying that I found it very peculiar that there was both a GOP and a Tea Party response. I don’t recall the last time we had two responses to the SOTU, but it was weird to me. Clearly, this benefits the Tea Party more than the GOP because it helps keep the Tea Party visible and relevant while simultaneously making the Tea Party look equal to the GOP in size and influence. Certainly, the GOP was not pleased with this development because the strength the Tea Party exudes from this comes at the expense of the GOP’s own strength. In the end, this will be a good thing for the GOP in 2012 because the Tea Party has energized the conservative movement and that energy from 2010 would probably carry over to 2012.
This assumes the Tea Party does not decide to field its own presidential ticket. If they do, then all bets are off and everything changes. A Tea Party ticket would not be a good thing for the GOP. If history is any indication, that would effectively hand Obama victory in 2012. Historically, when a third-party candidate emerges from the left of the democrats or the right of the GOP, the candidate of the undivided party wins due to the schism in the opposing party. So, if the GOP is split, the democrat wins, and if the democrats are split, the GOP wins.
We saw this with Bill Clinton in 1992. In my view, Papa Bush would almost certainly have won in 1992 if not for Ross Perot. We can also go back to 1968, when George Wallace ran as a third-party candidate, causing the schism in the democrat party that gave Richard Nixon and the GOP the presidency. 1912 is another famous example, when democrat Woodrow Wilson benefitted from the schism in the GOP involving republican Howard Taft and progressive Theodore Roosevelt (who was a republican when he was William McKinley’s vice president and when Teddy himself was president). There are a few other examples throughout the 20th century, but these were the most notable. Also, there were plenty of examples before 1912, but I’ve already veered far enough off topic.
The speeches themselves further confound me as to the reason they felt the need to issue separate responses. I found the speeches to be fairly similar in content and feel, so I didn’t find a whole lot to differentiate one from the other. Both hammered home the themes of individual freedom, limited government, spending reductions, tax cuts, and the will of the people. Bachmann’s response was slightly to the right politically of Ryan’s response, but that’s to be expected. Neither of them strike me as compelling speakers, even when shown in a vacuum, but especially when held next to Obama at his best in a more inspirational, thematic/theatrical setting. Generally, that’s the case because you’d typically need a president to give an exceptionally bad SOTU and you’d need the response to be exceptionally good if you’re looking for the response to trump the SOTU itself.
Both speeches had teeth and definitely got shots in at Obama and the democrats. Again, that’s to be expected. They were highlighting the paradox of debt reduction and increased spending that I discussed in Part 1. They also took their shots at Obamacare, calling for its repeal and replacement with a series of non-specific reforms that make healthcare more patient-focused and less expensive. Similar to Obama’s SOTU, both speeches were more inspirational and thematic, again more like pep rallies than actual plans.
I found it interesting that neither the GOP nor the Tea Party really tried to hammer Obama on foreign policy, social security, and energy, three issues I highlighted in Part 1 that I thought Obama left himself vulnerable to attack on. I thought for sure at least one of them would attack on at least one of those. It was also a very wise decision on the part of both speakers to avoid the gun control issue.
Bottom line, the responses themselves weren’t anything special, but the fact that there were two of them was something special.
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