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American Morning

Analysis of State of the Union Speech

Aired January 21, 2004 - 07:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to take you live to New Hampshire for more reaction, as the Democratic candidates gear up for next Tuesday's primary.
Let's turn now to CNN political analyst, Ron Brownstein. He joins us right here in the studio to take on the president's speech last night.

Nice to see you. Good morning.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning. Welcome to Washington.

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. It's nice to be here. A little cold, but otherwise nice.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Overall, let's take a look at the poll numbers. Very positive -- very positive, 45 percent said, somewhat positive, 31 percent -- putting him well over 75 percent.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: For people who had a good feeling about that speech last night, negative 23 percent. How do you think this speech -- last night's speech ranks with historical speeches in the past that this president has given?

BROWNSTEIN: I'm not sure this was really actually one of his best. I thought it in the middle range. And people are always positive about the State of the Union.

What's important about this speech, I think, is it was very different than advertised and very revealing. In the days leading up to the speech, White House aides were using words like "visionary" and "unifying" to describe it.

And I think it was much more of a throw-down-the-gauntlet speech. I thought the president was remarkably specific in identifying the areas where the Democratic candidates are criticizing him on the stump every day, and remarkably aggressive in making the case back against him. Americans are going to have no shortage of disagreements in this election year, and are really going to have a very bright-line choice. This is a bright-line president. He was very aggressive in making his case. It was a very sharp delineation with the Democrats. O'BRIEN: We heard from Senator Jon Corzine. He used the word, "defensive." He said less of the vision thing. Would you agree with that terminology?

BROWNSTEIN: I think it was less of a vision thing, but it wasn't really defensive. I think it was very confident and aggressive in making his case. He went through them one by one, Soledad, right at the beginning. The tax cuts are working. The Democrats are out there every day saying, they have led us to record deficits and haven't produced economic growth. The war in Iraq has made us safer. We are making progress in the war on terror. We are working with the rest of the world in Iraq and elsewhere.

O'BRIEN: What was missing from the speech? What do you think were the big gaps?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think -- well, I think that probably the biggest gap was in identifying new areas to reach out to voters beyond his coalition. He did a little of that, potentially with immigration reform.

But this is -- but much of this speech, like much of the presidency, I think, tends to be polarizing. He puts out ideas that Republicans like very much and Democrats dislike very much. He had a few things in here -- immigration. He went back to his faith-based initiative towards the end, talking about mentoring programs for the prisoners. A couple of years ago, he talked about mentoring programs for the children of prisoners.

He's working in sort of familiar fields for him and didn't really branch out as far into new direction as I thought he might. It was interesting that he left out the idea of the space program -- the rejuvenated space program, which Democrats had been ridiculing, and which the White House saw, I think, as described as sort of a capstone of this idea of portraying Bush as a leader who is looking well down the road and pursuing big changes, which, in fact, in many fronts he is -- immigration, social security reform, the whole doctrine of pre- emption.

O'BRIEN: It costs big money. And many people who were polled, certainly after hearing the president talk about the trips to Mars and, you know, eventually living on the moon, felt that that might be too expensive and it may have been a good reason to leave it out of the speech.

BROWNSTEIN: Very quickly, the question of costs was something that really in this speech at all. We are looking at $500 billion-a- year deficits. We have all of these new initiatives. And the question is: Who is going to pay for all of this if we're not willing to pay for it ourselves through taxes?

O'BRIEN: It's always the question. Ron Brownstein, nice to see you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.






Aired January 21, 2004 - 07:08   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to take you live to New Hampshire for more reaction, as the Democratic candidates gear up for next Tuesday's primary.
Let's turn now to CNN political analyst, Ron Brownstein. He joins us right here in the studio to take on the president's speech last night.

Nice to see you. Good morning.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning. Welcome to Washington.

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. It's nice to be here. A little cold, but otherwise nice.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Overall, let's take a look at the poll numbers. Very positive -- very positive, 45 percent said, somewhat positive, 31 percent -- putting him well over 75 percent.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: For people who had a good feeling about that speech last night, negative 23 percent. How do you think this speech -- last night's speech ranks with historical speeches in the past that this president has given?

BROWNSTEIN: I'm not sure this was really actually one of his best. I thought it in the middle range. And people are always positive about the State of the Union.

What's important about this speech, I think, is it was very different than advertised and very revealing. In the days leading up to the speech, White House aides were using words like "visionary" and "unifying" to describe it.

And I think it was much more of a throw-down-the-gauntlet speech. I thought the president was remarkably specific in identifying the areas where the Democratic candidates are criticizing him on the stump every day, and remarkably aggressive in making the case back against him. Americans are going to have no shortage of disagreements in this election year, and are really going to have a very bright-line choice. This is a bright-line president. He was very aggressive in making his case. It was a very sharp delineation with the Democrats. O'BRIEN: We heard from Senator Jon Corzine. He used the word, "defensive." He said less of the vision thing. Would you agree with that terminology?

BROWNSTEIN: I think it was less of a vision thing, but it wasn't really defensive. I think it was very confident and aggressive in making his case. He went through them one by one, Soledad, right at the beginning. The tax cuts are working. The Democrats are out there every day saying, they have led us to record deficits and haven't produced economic growth. The war in Iraq has made us safer. We are making progress in the war on terror. We are working with the rest of the world in Iraq and elsewhere.

O'BRIEN: What was missing from the speech? What do you think were the big gaps?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think -- well, I think that probably the biggest gap was in identifying new areas to reach out to voters beyond his coalition. He did a little of that, potentially with immigration reform.

But this is -- but much of this speech, like much of the presidency, I think, tends to be polarizing. He puts out ideas that Republicans like very much and Democrats dislike very much. He had a few things in here -- immigration. He went back to his faith-based initiative towards the end, talking about mentoring programs for the prisoners. A couple of years ago, he talked about mentoring programs for the children of prisoners.

He's working in sort of familiar fields for him and didn't really branch out as far into new direction as I thought he might. It was interesting that he left out the idea of the space program -- the rejuvenated space program, which Democrats had been ridiculing, and which the White House saw, I think, as described as sort of a capstone of this idea of portraying Bush as a leader who is looking well down the road and pursuing big changes, which, in fact, in many fronts he is -- immigration, social security reform, the whole doctrine of pre- emption.

O'BRIEN: It costs big money. And many people who were polled, certainly after hearing the president talk about the trips to Mars and, you know, eventually living on the moon, felt that that might be too expensive and it may have been a good reason to leave it out of the speech.

BROWNSTEIN: Very quickly, the question of costs was something that really in this speech at all. We are looking at $500 billion-a- year deficits. We have all of these new initiatives. And the question is: Who is going to pay for all of this if we're not willing to pay for it ourselves through taxes?

O'BRIEN: It's always the question. Ron Brownstein, nice to see you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.