Set The Course: President Obama's Challenge In The State Of The Union Address

No surprise that President Obama knows how to deliver a speech. His State of the Union speech will add to his reviving poll numbers. He set up what should be a centerpiece of Washington's debate over the next months: invest and grow vs. the Republican "cut and grow," or, in the Republican Study Group version, "gut and grow."

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At a time when the American public is primarily anxious about the current state of the economy, and after the last Congress proved that the politics around climate policy are miserably and treacherously complicated, it wouldn't appear to make much sense for the President to prioritize the climate crisis in his State of the Union address. more »

A national industrial/economic policy is a plan by a government to promote the growth of key strategic industries or sectors in a country. Examples: China has been developing their manufacturing sector and is now the largest exporter. India spent decades building up the components of an information technology industry and has reaped the rewards. more »

In the much-buzzed-about Sunday New York Times Magazine article by Peter Baker on President Obama's search for an "exciting" jobs plan that could be offered in his State of the Union address next week, a White House adviser describes Obama as "really frustrated that there weren’t solutions on the cheap" for addressing t more »

Will the president's State of the Union address next Tuesday be another transcendent Obama moment?

As we've witnessed repeatedly, from the moment he burst on the national scene at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston to last week in Tucson, President Obama can touch Americans like no other political leader. He does so most often by providing the poetry that reminds us that we are all Americans, that "there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America." He invokes our common values, our common concerns. Can the president use his State of the Union address next week to call Americans to a common cause in the midst of our bitterly polarized politics?