Obama to seek populist tone in State of Union

Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night will take the populist economic rhetoric he’s been polishing over the past few months and use it to frame his re-election campaign.

“The speech will merge what he wants to say in the campaign with what he wants to do. He’s going to be, as Truman did, attacking Congress as the ‘do nothing Congress,’ and certainly it’s total dysfunctional,” said James Thurber, presidential historian at American University in Washington.

The address begins at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

House Speaker John Boehner signaled Sunday that he’s ready for the fight.

“If that’s what the president is going to talk about Tuesday night, I think it’s pathetic,” the Ohio Republican said on Fox News Sunday.

The annual report by the president, required by the Constitution, has grown more political as presidential contests have kicked off earlier. State of the Union speeches, for presidents seeking a second term, are campaign tools.

“If they don’t use the State of the Union message in the year of an election, they’re really quite foolish,” said Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional & Presidential Studies.

Obama will focus on the economy and “there will be new ideas,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.

Obama isn’t likely to get major initiatives enacted before the November election that will decide the presidency and control of the House and Senate.

Aside from the opposition from Republicans, who now control the House, Obama’s agenda will be constrained by a lack of room for new programs in the budget. Last year’s deficit of $1.3 trillion, about matching the figure from 2010, was third-highest deficit as a share of the economy since 1945.

“President Obama will set low expectations for what can be accomplished this year, but offer strong rhetoric that sharply delineates him” from the Republican presidential candidates, Jamie Chandler, a professor of political science at Hunter College in New York, said in an email.

Obama previewed his message in a Dec. 6 speech in Osawatomie, Kan., that invoked the populism of President Theodore Roosevelt. Economic inequality threatens the economy and has left millions of Americans feeling that “the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded,” he said.

That means more “fairness” is needed in the tax code and in making sure that financial firms are playing by the same rules as other businesses, according to Obama.

The State of the Union “will be a bookend to what I said in Kansas last month about the central mission we have as a country, and my central focus as president,” Obama said in a video emailed to supporters Jan. 21.

While he didn’t give specific proposal, Obama said the address will be a “blueprint for an American economy that’s built to last” through supporting manufacturing, energy development and education and training.

The president is scheduled to deliver the televised address to a joint session of Congress at 9 p.m. in Washington.

The Republican response will be delivered by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who flirted last year with running for president. In announcing the role for Daniels, Boehner said Indiana can claim a balanced budget, a AAA credit rating and recognition by Chief Executive magazine as the sixth-best state to do business.

Since congressional Republicans thwarted a $447 billion package of tax cuts and spending he proposed last September, Obama has embarked on a series of speeches across the country that focus on executive actions designed to create jobs. He’s also calling attention to differences with Republicans.

Obama will leave the morning after the State of the Union for a three-day trip to Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan. Along with Florida, all are battlegrounds in the presidential election.

Republicans anticipate being in Obama’s cross-hairs.

“I expect a strafing mission,” said Ed Gillespie, a Republican strategist who was an adviser to former President George W. Bush. “I don’t think he’s going to treat it as a moment where you come into the legislative branch, with the Supreme Court there and try to elevate the dialogue and talk about policy.”

Obama will be able to point to signs that the economy is rebounding.

The drop unemployment rate in December dropped to 8.5 percent, a three-year low, and employers expanded payrolls by 200,000, showed the job market is gaining momentum. Manufacturing output climbed 0.9 percent, the biggest gain since December 2010, according to Federal Reserve data.

General Motors is now the world’s top-selling automaker after emerging from a government-backed bankruptcy two years ago and all automakers in the United States are adding production shifts, or plan to do so, at 15 plants, including six in Michigan.

Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report, said he expects the president to tell Americans that there is cause for optimism.

“This is not ‘mission accomplished,’ this is not, ‘game over,’ but there are signs in the economy that we’ve turned the corner,” Rothenberg said. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel’s still long.”

Jared Bernstein, former chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden, said he expects Obama to “hit very hard on this role for government and helping to strengthen the middle class, contrasted with the views of the opposition, but in context of fiscal responsibility.”

Obama also will revisit last year’s theme of a “balanced approach” toward closing the $1.3 trillion deficit, what Republicans say are code words for tax increases, according to Bernstein.

While foreign policy is traditionally a component of the annual address, Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy institute in Washington, said he expects it to play “a minor role” in this year’s speech.

Obama may take credit for the death of Osama bin Laden on his watch and ending the war in Iraq, and talk about winding down the war in Afghanistan.

At the same time, Alterman said, Iraq is facing more violence since U.S. troops left, U.S. negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan is difficult to explain to voters, and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons continues despite sanctions.

“He’s going to talk about being tough on terrorism, on U.S. leadership,” Alterman said. “Everything the president says from here on out is principally political. Everything he does and doesn’t say will be seized on by his political opponents.”