Good SOTU Advice for Obama

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Some State of the Union tips from former Clinton speechwriter Michael Waldman:

He can play jujitsu and find a way to use the angry energy of the Republican electorate against the interests of Republican elected officials. Those voters were angry about congressional corruption, earmarks and the deficit. Obama could try to leapfrog the Republicans in Congress by proposing strong, really bold reforms and make them try to catch up. … In this case, Republicans ran in opposition to exploding federal deficits and, within months of the election, were demanding tax cuts and other steps that would increase the deficit. President Obama needs to find a way to argue that, now that we’ve done quite a bit in the short term to turn the economic situation around, we need to turn to the call for long-term fiscal discipline, which can be used to blunt policies he doesn’t want. Finding a way to pit the deficit anxiety of the public against the tax cut hunger of the Republican elites has to be one of his key goals. [emphasis added]

And Obama really ought to steal this winning punchline from former Bush speechwriter David Frum:

We can see the future of a better economy already emerging.

Over the past twelve months, we have created more than one million net new jobs in the private sector — while government employment has shrunk by more than 250,000.

Corporate profitability has reached record highs, meaning that companies can afford to hire as demand revives.

Including dividends, the stock market has gained more than 10 percent this year.

If this is “socialism,” what would capitalism look like?