State of the punditry (SOTP), Wednesday edition.
CBS:
An overwhelming majority of Americans approved of the overall message in President Obama's State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, according to a CBS News poll of speech watchers.
According to the poll, which was conducted online by Knowledge Networks immediately after the president's address, 91 percent of those who watched the speech approved of the proposals Mr. Obama put forth during his remarks. Only nine percent disapproved.
Last year, 83 percent of viewers approved of Mr. Obama's State of the Union remarks.
CNN:
"Tuesday night's State of the Union audience is more Democratic than the nation as a whole, which is typical for a President Obama speech and indicates that the speech-watchers were predisposed to like what Obama said," noted CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "When George W. Bush was president, his audiences were more Republican than the general public at that time, and his speeches were usually well-received for that same reason."
More commentary on the insta-polls here from last night.
Mark Blumenthal:
Polling bumps from State of the Union addresses are largely the stuff of myth. That's the message of before-and-after polls conducted over the last three decades. What might add a twist to this year's address, however, is an unusual context -- a new Republican House Speaker seated behind President Barack Obama and a recent bump in Obama's job approval ratings -- that could make for some unexpected impact.
Democracy Corps focus group:
This was a difficult audience for Obama, yet his speech largely won them over. It was a heavily Republican-leaning group (48 percent Republican, 18 percent Democratic) that split their votes in 2008 (48 percent Obama, 48 percent McCain) but had moved away from the President over the past two years. At the outset, majorities expressed disapproval with his job performance and unfavorable views of him on a personal level.
Despite this Republican tilt, Obama saw significant shifts in his overall standing — larger even than after his well-received State of the Union address last year. His overall job approval among these voters jumped by 26 points (10 points more than he gained last year) while his personal standing flipped from decidedly cool (30 percent warm versus 62 percent cool) to much warmer (52 percent warm, 27 percent cool).
EJ Dionne:
I've argued for a while that American decline is the specter haunting our politics, and that this could be the president's undoing -- or provide him with the opportunity to revive his presidency. Obama has clearly decided to take that challenge on, embracing the idea of America as an exceptional nation that always, well, wins the future. And he also believes that the "win the future" theme will be the key to winning a future election that is less than two years away.
EJ also points out that optimism beats pessimism. Well, we saw that with the SOTU speeches last night. If anyone has insta-polls or focus groups on Ebenezer Scrooge's or Howard Beale's GOP SOTU responses, let me know.
Dan Balz:
President Obama and his party may have suffered a historic defeat in November's midterm elections, but in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, he was anything but on the defensive.
Brad DeLong on where we'd be if Romney won:
I see only two key policy differences between RomneyWorld and ObamaWorld. Had Romney been elected president in 2008 we would not have repealed the military policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." And had Romney been elected president in 2008, Elizabeth Warren would not now be Assistant to the President for Consumer Financial Protection.
Otherwise? As far as policy is concerned, we would be smack on the mark that we are on now.
But the politics would be very, very different.
Think, first, of the Republicans — their legislators and office holders, their spinmasters, stenographers, and intellectuals. All Republicans except a small grumbling fringe would be crowing about how ObamaCare — oops! I mean RomneyCare — is the golden mean between continued tolerance of a dysfunctional system and rash experimentation with overregulation. All would be saying that Republicans were able to get things done because they were not overambitious or free-market-phobic.
Fox News:
Obama Offers Something for Everyone in Expansive State of the Union Speech
Focusing on America as a nation of big ideas, President Obama told Congress on Tuesday night that he wants to reorganize the federal government to make it serve a more competitive nation while also simplifying the tax code, doubling exports in three years and investing in free enterprise that drives innovation.
In a speech that clearly aimed at tacking toward the middle, the president offered suggestions that may be welcomed by many of his political opponents -- reducing federal spending, abolishing cumbersome regulations, cutting the deficit and even changing his signature health care law.