President Biden delivered a State of the Union address Tuesday night that Democrats will likely be thrilled with.
He struck notes of his traditional unity message, pledging to work with the new Republican House leadership and touting his legislative accomplishments in the past year, but Biden also laid out an Average Joe America vision for 2024 full of poll-tested, middle-of-the-road issues, as well as a healthy dose of left-wing populism.
And he showed a clear contrast between himself and right-wing House Republicans, who couldn’t help themselves, hectoring Biden repeatedly despite newly minted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy explicitly instructing them beforehand not to do so.
It’s hard to be both confrontational and paint yourself as reasonable, but for many in the middle and center-left, Biden likely walked that line well.
The president didn’t call for a whole lot of new policy initiatives from the new Congress — beyond, for example, ending what he called “junk fees” in travel, entertainment and credit cards. It showed he’s gearing up for campaign mode — to “finish the job,” as he said some 12 times in the speech — and that he’s likely going to campaign on what he’s already done by drawing a big-picture distinction between his vision for America and Republicans’.
Here are five takeaways from Biden’s speech:
1. The speech had to make Democrats more comfortable with the idea of Biden as the standard-bearer again in 2024
Lots of surveys show Democrats would prefer someone else to run in 2024 instead of Biden, mostly because of his age — though no one can definitively point to who the alternative should be.
Biden is…
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