The Hill News

The pundits who analyzed the president’s last State of the Union speech missed the key insight. This wasn’t a speech purporting to prescribe substantive proposals, about electric cars or taxes for the top 2 percent of earners or tax reform. Oh, those words were used. But something else â€" something profound â€" was going on.
 
First, his frustrating two years of fighting partisanship â€" it’s still there â€" was used by this canny president to isolate himself as the one really striving for bipartisanship. Folks who loathe each other sat together to give the illusion of mature partisans. But the president captured and owns the mantle of bipartisanship, even shaking Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) hand (the one that barely clapped at his remarks) and repeating his pleas for friendly fighting. He is seen as being apart from the food fighters and naysayers, as a man really trying to move past the noise and negativism.

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