Here Comes Another State Of The Union Address...
Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 5:24 pm
There is no better theater for a President than the SOTU address...it is without question the best PR tool in their toolbox...
All four major networks doing 30 minutes of prep work and build up...
Then the Well of The House fills with the entire top tier of the political class, friend and foe alike, all seated focusing attention on you...
The medaled commanders of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff, the ambassadors of the Important Foreign Countries, and the robed members of the Supreme Court (who by tradition do not stand and applaud) all file in...
And then...
The Great Man Arrives...
And The Sergeant at Arms Of The House announces:
Mr. Speaker! THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!
And to a thunderous standing ovation, he makes his way slowly down the aisle with his Congressional Escort, smiling, shaking hands, and bestowing the occasional kiss...
Until he arrives at the rostrum set up for him, hands copies of his speech to The Vice President and The Speaker, and then the Speaker announces:
"Members of the Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States."
And then there's another thunderous standing ovation...
And then he goes on for about an hour, (or nearly two if you're Bill Clinton) giving an utterly unremarkable speech, that consists largely of a dreary laundry list of policy objectives, punctuated by the occasional vague platitude...
During which he will be interrupted with thunderous applause numerous times; sometimes only from those on his side of The Aisle, other times from the whole House; depending on the nature of the platitude.
And of course there's also the obligatory recognition of The Ordinary Person Who Did An Extraordinary Thing, usually seated next to The First Lady...(this tradition began with Mr. Reagan, and while it was noteworthy at one time, it has become rather predictable)
Then after he completes this performance, he strides again down aisle , to another round of thunderous applause, and exits The House...
And then after that Cecil B DeMille production, we get about 10 minutes of "instant analysis" by the news-things on the networks, (which is a bit disingenuous, given the fact that the entire speech is usually released several hours in advance...)
Followed by the "opposition response"...
Which brings me to the point of this post...
(Recently, in addition to giving air time for the official GOP response, the mainstream media also gives time for a "Tea Party Response".... I understand why they do that; the media is more than happy to showcase divisions within the Republican Party...Personally I'd love to see them extend the same generosity to the Democrats...why don't we have a "Progressive" response delivered by Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren as well?...but I digress... )
So after this spectacular display, some poor shlep or shlepette (not that they're necessarily shleps or shlepettes; nobody could look good in this comparison...) comes on the tube for about 15 minutes, standing alone with no audience, looking awkward and uncomfortable in front of some phony looking book case, and that's the "response"...
The optics of the comparison are terrible. You cannot help but look puny; if Wally Cox were POTUS with all that majesty and ceremonial flummery of the SOTU at his disposal, and the "opposition response" was given by Fabio, Fabio would look like a nebish, and Wally would look like a stud...
You simply can not compete with that; you shouldn't even try...
No person has ever helped themselves politically by giving an "opposition response" and a number have damaged themselves, (Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal come to mind) and no out of power party has ever received a boost from a SOTU "opposition response"...
The parties understand how terrible the comparison looks, and over the years they've fiddled with different formats to try and use their 15 minutes of network time more effectively...
They've tried having several spokespersons, they've tried using an "infomercial" format, they've tried using canned films...The best "opposition response" ever was probably Christine Todd Whitman's back in the Clinton years...she gave her response in front of a joint session of the New Jersey State legislature, so it kind of looked like a SOTU speech...(albeit a low rent version)
It's time to just throw in the towel on this. I know it's tough to turn down what looks like millions of dollars worth of free publicity, but when the publicity just makes you look like shleps, you should turn it down..the Republican National Committee, (and the Democratic National Committee when the shoe's on the other foot) should simply decline to provide an "opposition response" to the SOTU speech, and stop playing this game...
You can't wind up looking anything but bad...
All four major networks doing 30 minutes of prep work and build up...
Then the Well of The House fills with the entire top tier of the political class, friend and foe alike, all seated focusing attention on you...
The medaled commanders of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff, the ambassadors of the Important Foreign Countries, and the robed members of the Supreme Court (who by tradition do not stand and applaud) all file in...
And then...
The Great Man Arrives...
And The Sergeant at Arms Of The House announces:
Mr. Speaker! THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!
And to a thunderous standing ovation, he makes his way slowly down the aisle with his Congressional Escort, smiling, shaking hands, and bestowing the occasional kiss...
Until he arrives at the rostrum set up for him, hands copies of his speech to The Vice President and The Speaker, and then the Speaker announces:
"Members of the Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States."
And then there's another thunderous standing ovation...
And then he goes on for about an hour, (or nearly two if you're Bill Clinton) giving an utterly unremarkable speech, that consists largely of a dreary laundry list of policy objectives, punctuated by the occasional vague platitude...
During which he will be interrupted with thunderous applause numerous times; sometimes only from those on his side of The Aisle, other times from the whole House; depending on the nature of the platitude.
And of course there's also the obligatory recognition of The Ordinary Person Who Did An Extraordinary Thing, usually seated next to The First Lady...(this tradition began with Mr. Reagan, and while it was noteworthy at one time, it has become rather predictable)
Then after he completes this performance, he strides again down aisle , to another round of thunderous applause, and exits The House...
And then after that Cecil B DeMille production, we get about 10 minutes of "instant analysis" by the news-things on the networks, (which is a bit disingenuous, given the fact that the entire speech is usually released several hours in advance...)
Followed by the "opposition response"...
Which brings me to the point of this post...
(Recently, in addition to giving air time for the official GOP response, the mainstream media also gives time for a "Tea Party Response".... I understand why they do that; the media is more than happy to showcase divisions within the Republican Party...Personally I'd love to see them extend the same generosity to the Democrats...why don't we have a "Progressive" response delivered by Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren as well?...but I digress... )
So after this spectacular display, some poor shlep or shlepette (not that they're necessarily shleps or shlepettes; nobody could look good in this comparison...) comes on the tube for about 15 minutes, standing alone with no audience, looking awkward and uncomfortable in front of some phony looking book case, and that's the "response"...
The optics of the comparison are terrible. You cannot help but look puny; if Wally Cox were POTUS with all that majesty and ceremonial flummery of the SOTU at his disposal, and the "opposition response" was given by Fabio, Fabio would look like a nebish, and Wally would look like a stud...
You simply can not compete with that; you shouldn't even try...
No person has ever helped themselves politically by giving an "opposition response" and a number have damaged themselves, (Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal come to mind) and no out of power party has ever received a boost from a SOTU "opposition response"...
The parties understand how terrible the comparison looks, and over the years they've fiddled with different formats to try and use their 15 minutes of network time more effectively...
They've tried having several spokespersons, they've tried using an "infomercial" format, they've tried using canned films...The best "opposition response" ever was probably Christine Todd Whitman's back in the Clinton years...she gave her response in front of a joint session of the New Jersey State legislature, so it kind of looked like a SOTU speech...(albeit a low rent version)
It's time to just throw in the towel on this. I know it's tough to turn down what looks like millions of dollars worth of free publicity, but when the publicity just makes you look like shleps, you should turn it down..the Republican National Committee, (and the Democratic National Committee when the shoe's on the other foot) should simply decline to provide an "opposition response" to the SOTU speech, and stop playing this game...
You can't wind up looking anything but bad...
