While I have not watched the State of the Union speech on a regular basis for some time, I decided that this year’s was likely to have significant political salience, so I watched the whole thing. Keep in mind that I find the entire State of the Union speech to be largely pointless from a policy point of view. As such, I actually, disagree with James Joyner that there is anything “shameful” about it being a political speech. It has always been a political speech and the fact that it has become more unruly in my lifetime is not a reflection, in my view, that the speech has gotten more political, but rather is a reflection of how partisan politics (and media politics) have evolved during that span.
In simple terms, the SOTU has always been aimed primarily at audiences outside the chamber and really isn’t about convincing Members of Congress of much of anything.
As a general matter, I have come around to the position of my friend and sometimes co-author, Matthew Shugart, Down with the State of the Union. But I also have re-evaluated my overall view of the speech as one that is quite clearly a purely political act not much different from a convention speech. It is a chance for the sitting President to get a substantial amount of attention (but not like it was when I was a child in the 70s when it was literally the only thing on TV save what might be on the local UHF station).
At any rate, Biden had one main goal: not appearing old. He achieved that goal in spades. While he occasionally stumbled over words, that is nitpicking. After all, most speakers do stumble at times and, moreover, Biden has never been a grand orator. Beyond that, he was able to deal with hecklers in the moment. He was not “Sleepy Joe.” Indeed, the critics on Twitter seemed fixated on the idea he was too loud and speaking too quickly. One suspects that if the word on the street is that Biden was too hyper at the SOTU, the Biden campaign will be thrilled. (Or, indeed, fiery).
A second goal, in my view, for Biden was to reassure, if not invigorate, Democrats watching the speech. I think he did that. He was on the attack and did not mince words on issues like Ukraine, democracy, and the border.
The speech was hardly a rhetorical masterpiece. And yes, there were errors (including using the term “illegal” to describe the person who killed Lanken Riley, which will not sit well with progressives–as well as pronouncing her name as “Lincoln Riley,” which will be used as proof of his dotage, no doubt). However, all of this has to be judged against expectations. Democrats have been incredibly anxious about whether or not Biden is ready for a campaign. Last night suggests that he is. Meanwhile, Republicans have been making it sound like Biden can barely function, and he demonstrated last night that was not the case. I would note that that was a foolish picture to paint since it set a very low bar, which Biden clearly cleared.
I would note, by the way, that Biden isn’t going to convince the FNC/MAGA crowd that he isn’t senile. He just needs to convince enough undecideds/independents/swing voters that he is capable of doing the job. The question is, therefore, what signal was sent to the casual voter last night? And I think the answer is that Joe is not as sleepy as has been advertised.
