During the State of the Union yesterday, President Obama made specific reference to a major issue brewing since the Occupy movement started: economic fairness.
This was not the easiest audience for Obama; although slightly more participants voted for him than McCain in 2008, it was a significantly Republican-leaning group (44 percent Republican, 32 percent Democratic). At the outset, these voters were split 50/50 on Obama’s job performance and just 50 percent gave him a favorable personal rating. But the President gained ground after the speech; his job rating rose 8 points and his personal standing jumped 16 points, to 66 percent favorable.
The dials spiked when the President made his strong populist pitch for the “Buffet Rule,” with Democrats exceeding 80 on our 0-to-100 scale and both independents and Republicans moving above 70. ere was no polarization here, as voters across the political spectrum gave Obama high marks. And Obama’s framing of the economic challenges facing the country through the lens of post-World War II America was particularly effective. He also received high marks for his proposal to change the tax code to encourage “insourcing” instead of “outsourcing,” his call to change our “unemployment system” to a “re-employment system” and his appeal to make it easier for entrepreneurs and small business to grow and create jobs.
The Republicans are caught in a box. If their (mostly) tea party-fueled candidate, Newt Gingrich, wins the primary, they lose.
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