Big Fat Story
This year the Republican response to the State of the Union will be given by newly elected Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. McDonnell’s election in November was a bright spot for the Republican Party. His resounding victory against Democrat Creigh Deeds last fall was interpreted as an early sign of voter dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama’s agenda. McDonnell should be wary, though. The last Republican response was given by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, once seen as the party’s rising star, whose poor performance relegated him to B-list status among Republican leaders. New York Times columnist David Brooks called Jindal’s speech a “disaster.” But the job of opposition respondent (first televised in 1966) has sometimes been a launching pad. Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Al Gore all took a turn, years before they reached the White House.
Photo: Scott K. Brown / AP Photo
Quick: in the event that catastrophe strikes Capitol Hill during the president’s address, which member of the Cabinet do you want safe, secure in an undisclosed location, ready to put everything back together again? It could be Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and energy secretary who the Obama folks hid during the president’s address on health care last fall. During the inauguration, the incoming administration chose Robert Gates, the defense secretary, to stay away. The choice made sense. He was the highest-ranking holdover from the Bush administration. The designated are not always as well-suited for emergency leadership as Gates. In the past, presidents have kept agricultural secretaries and secretaries of the interior tucked away in case a new leader of the free world is needed. The tradition of holding one back dates to the Cold War, when the fear of a Soviet missile strike led the government to take extra precautions.
Photo: Loay Hameed / AP Photo
In 1982, Ronald Reagan began the tradition of inviting individuals to the president’s box, to congratulate those who committed an act of heroism and can offer an example to the country. He chose government worker Lenny Skutnik who had recently saved a woman from the icy waters of the Potomac River. Obama is no stranger of using an individual to offer lessons to the nation. In his 2008 victory speech, the president-elect cited Ann Nixon Cooper, a 106-year-old African-American woman from Atlanta, who had seen a century of American change with her own eyes (Cooper passed away last December). In his September address on health care, Obama called upon Ty'Sheoma Bethea of Dillon, South Carolina, a student, to provide an example of America’s hopefulness. Wednesday night should see similar rhetoric and perhaps a special guest or two as well.
Photo: John Amis / AP Photo
Backstage at the State of the Union
The five people—besides the president—who are key to Wednesday’s big-time address.
Obama’s words will be dissected immediately after they are delivered. They will be studied by a hungry press corps looking for insight into how the president will get his presidency, which suddenly seems stalled, back on track. The lead speechwriter responsible for those words is 28-year-old Jon Favreau, who began started by writing op-eds for John Kerry and whose fame has skyrocketed right alongside Obama’s. Favreau grew up wanting to be a politician, not a writer. One former boss told Boston Magazine, "I really think Favs is a once-in-a-generation talent—not only because of his intelligence or his fluidity with words, but because he's a normal person. A lot of people in the political world are not. He's able to connect with real people."
Photo: Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images
The first State of the Union was given by George Washington in 1790. Thomas Jefferson found the public address before Congress to be too monarchical. Throughout the 19th century, the State of the Union was normally presented in writing to the Congress by the president. In 1913, Woodrow Wilson changed all that. Wilson, a gifted speaker, understood the power that a public address could have on Congress and the American people. (It was first given over the radio by Calvin Coolidge a decade later, and first televised on Harry Truman’s watch.) “Wilson was great for meeting in person with people,” one historian told The New York Times. “And he used these addresses as a means to gain popular support for his wartime policies and also to bend arms in Congress.” Now we have another president hoping his own speech can bend more than a few arms.
Photo: AP Photo
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