It’s just a speech….
It gets media attention for a few ….
Then it just goes away……
The talk is Biden will use the occasion to point out his accomplishments and informally lauch his 2024 re-election campaign….
Ok…
The speech’s tend to be overly long….
And?
Joe Biden is NOT a rousing speaker….
(He actually has a stutter)…
President Biden plans to challenge the new House Republican majority on Tuesday night to raise taxes on the wealthy, extend more social aid to the needy and rule out cuts to Social Security and Medicare as he opens an era of divided government.
In his first State of the Union address since his fellow Democrats lost control of the House, aides said Mr. Biden would call on lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to rally around his economic agenda, even as the newly empowered opposition gears up to try to force him to change direction.
No one expects the Republicans now running the House to embrace Mr. Biden’s legislative program, nor is the president likely to agree anytime soon to the other side’s demands for deep spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling. But the speech and the G.O.P. response will frame the terms of debate heading into the coming year, even as Mr. Biden prepares to announce a campaign for re-election this spring.
“I want to talk to the American people and let them know the state of affairs — what’s going on, what I’m looking forward to working on from this point on, what we’ve done, and just have a conversation with the American people,” Mr. Biden told reporters on Monday when asked what he would highlight in his speech….
…
Dan Pfeiffer: “Last year, 38 million people tuned in to watch President Biden deliver his constitutionally mandated report on the state of the union. A similar number will watch tonight’s speech. Absent a major national event on par with the Space Shuttle Challenger crash or the operation to take out Osama Bin Laden, the audience tonight will be more than ten times larger than that of any other speech Biden will give this year. The speech will also receive a ton of press attention. It has already been the subject of approximately one million thumb-sucking think pieces. The State of the Union really is a tradition like no other.”
“The State of the Union is also a weird speech. It’s a grand venue with a big audience in the room and across the nation. Even the least presidential Presidents look somewhat presidential giving the speech. In many ways, the State of the Union is a high-floor, low-ceiling speech. It’s hard to screw up, but it’s also hard to soar. The history, the moment, and the setting can be very restrictive.”
Jonathan Bernstein: “I hope Joe Biden’s State of the Union address is boring. It ought to be.”
image…Al Drago for The New York Times