The general consensus is that Tuesday's SOTU address was, at best, pretty lackluster. Even
conservatives are
grumbling that it lacked ideas, coherence and inspiration. It was an odd disconnect from the pre-speech hype that heralded a visionary new direction for the country. What happened?
As everyone knows, in politics, the expectations game is key. Rove knows that a politician benefits more rising out of low expectations than from simply doing as expected. For example, people thought so little from George's ability that he "won" the 2000 debates by simply not being retarded. Now, I'm normally not this conspiratorial- but is anyone thinking that they intentionally crafted a mediocre speech to deflate expectations for the campaign?
The buzz surrounding Bush/Cheney 04 is that they're coming off big GOP wins in 02, enjoying high approval ratings, and raising more money than any candidacy in history. Expectations are sky-high. Hell, Pat Robertson said God himself has ordained a bush landslide. This kind of hype is very dangerous. As Howard Dean can now tell you, you don't want to peak too early, and if people expect too much that buzz can quickly turn to backlash.
So, would Bush have benefited more from a grandiose speech that played all his cards from the start, or a low-key, somewhat disappointing address that deflated the hype and re-positioned him in the expectations game? I'd argue the latter.
Look at the speech itself. They supposedly took months to write it, but it seemed amateurish and confusing. The foreign policy stuff was unusually flat, the domestic stuff was random and haphazard (who decided to put steroid use in before the conservative favorite marriage issue- or at all for that matter??); it hardly seemed the work of the highly oiled Bush machine. I mean, I could have given a dozen ways the speech could have been improved - and I'm a moron.
Granted, there are other explanations. They probably had to chop a bunch of high-sounding space stuff after polls proved it a flop. Also, there's the whole problem of the actual, you know, real state of the union not being very good. But hear me now and believe me later, if the papers the day after the address are putting more emphasis on Kerry than Bush, it's because that's exactly how Rove wants it.