Will Marshall analyzes the SOTU and Obama’s populism at Politico’s Arena:
“President Obama emphasized fairness and pledge to raise taxes on wealthy Americans. If this be populism, we are all populists now, and the voters are solidly behind the president on this. But the prevailing tone in Obama’s speech wasn’t class warfare, as some political reporters have claimed. It was economic patriotism.
“Obama’s State of the Union Speech last night was Clintonian, in two senses. First it was stupendously long, as Clinton’s SOTU speeches tended to be. Second and more important, Obama repeatedly evoked consensual American values and common national interests, muting rather than inflaming ideological or partisan differences.”
