Gridiron Gridlock Strategies

While we've said many times over the years that politics is not sports, and it should not be considered sports, forgive us if we break that cardinal rule today in our thorough evaluation of President Obama's 2014 State Of The Union address.

Chalk it up to our personal connections with football, or the relatively close nature of the words "gridlock" and "gridiron." You could even chalk it up to the Super Bowl happening this weekend, if that makes you feel better. The fact remains, as we evaluated the President's address from Tuesday night, and the GOP reactions to it over the last day or so, we began to see some similarities that looked an awful lot like football strategies.

With the kinds of thugs and bullies like GOP Rep. Michael Grimm from New York on their "team," you might think Congressional Republicans had an edge in this mythical "Stupid Bowl". After all, for a team that's rigged the "game" of politics from Richard Nixon through the 2000 presidential election right through the gerrymandering of 2010, Republicans have a long and well-known history of trick plays, illegal formations, and roughing up anyone who might get in their way - including the referees, the American voters.

When it comes to the pastime of actually governing, though, we think the strategies President Obama outlined in this year's State Of The Union are the kinds of head down, three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust philosophies that the American people would much rather see carried out.

Even while lamenting the non-traditional nature of the strategy, Ryan Cooper of The Plum Line seemed to agree with our analysis of President Obama's multi-faceted strategy. That is, that Obama might be able to break the gridlockracy that's had Washington politics more impassable than Atlanta's highways.

We also agreed with William Saletan's strategy breakdown that pointed out how Obama's new approach also has an added benefit: Highlighting how America's current economic rules are actually failing to reward honest hard work.

President Obama even seems to have avoided the kind of over-exuberance displayed by Richard Sherman two weeks ago, by not tweaking Republicans too hard in the State Of The Union. That lack of smack-talk and refusal to bring up certain subjects initially frustrated many of Obama's supporters Tuesday night. As Jonathan Bernstein noted though, no matter what Americans say, they actually care more about substance and results - and President Obama's 'do what he can without Congress' strategy looks like he may be able to really get some serious results this year, on his own.

As for Republicans and their fractured responses, the only real strategy we can see coming from their actions is an old strategy known as the "prevent defense" - a method of preventing your opponent from scoring points that only works in situations where the team on offense must go for the big play. As anyone familiar with team sports strategies knows, the prevent defense - even if it's successful - can only work for so long.

In the "game" of politics at the national level, we think President Obama's new strategies could really win out for him this year.

For the Republicans, we think it's clear their playbook is empty - and their time may very well be running out.

Time For Action

While we're delaying our full evaluation of the President's State of The Union address - at least until tomorrow - in the spirit of the President's multiple calls to action Tuesday night, we wanted to act today to get out our initial brief evaluation of his annual address. For most of our staff, that meant staying up a bit later than usual, and staying inside where the heat is cranked up against the latest polar vortex that's blasted virtually every state in the lower 48, that sits east of the Rocky Mountains.

With the bitter cold rattling just outside our own windows, we tended to agree with Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast - our political hearts weren't exactly warmed by the President's address. There were positive moments during the address, for example when the President was standing up for the working poor and for equal pay for women. We also loved it when he stood up for campaign finance reform, saying, "It should be the power of our votes, not the size of our bank accounts that drives our democracy."

We also thought it was bold and correct of the President to call out the anti-science climate change deniers last night. He solidly knocked them back when he stated clearly, "The debate is settled — Climate change is a FACT." As the President confirmed, and as we've long agreed with, the questions on the issue have long since moved from the existence of climate change to the effects of climate change.

That's been obvious in the Midwest and Eastern half of our nation this winter, where one of those effects of rapid climate change has been a massive increase in the use of fuel to heat our homes and businesses. With multiple arctic blasts hitting repeatedly over the past few weeks, there's been a significantly increased demand for fuel to keep us warm, like propane and natural gas. That high demand has turned into a real monster for the pocketbooks of many.

Thanks to the President taking action a few years ago though, with his "All Of The Above" energy strategy, America has more fuel than we once did - and that likely held prices down further than we realize.

That point - that Americans are tired of pointless actions coming from Washington, DC - came through loud and clear when President Obama slammed the Republicans in Congress for wasting more than 40 sessions voting against Obamacare.

In fact, while there are many more things we would have liked to have heard from President Obama, that he's finally ready to act whenever and wherever he can - even if Congress won't get off their fat collective ass - was probably the single best reminder of how much he's already done without their help.

The President pushing Congress to pass Obamacare was a major action during his tenure so far, one that's proving more successful every day. Efforts like the 'Race to the Top' program have been action. The "All of the Above" energy strategy that President Obama has championed for years now? That's been action too. The President even hammered home the fact that he'll act without Congress by announcing before the State of The Union address, that he'll raise the base minimum wage for all future federal contract employees.

Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers' official GOP response - one of four responses from the highly divided Republican Party - was filled with vague promises of plans and standard GOP platitudes, with no specific solutions for action.

The message the President delivered last night was clear: If Congress doesn't act, he will. We just hope he goes all the way this time. We know Congress - especially Republicans in Congress - are going to continue to act like monsters and bullies for any American they disagree with, unless we dump most of them from office this fall.

As we've said for many long years, and as the President echoed our mantra last night, "Nothing in life that's worth anything is easy." As the President noted, this is no longer time for debate.

It's time Americans acted, to do the hard thing, and elect a Congress this fall that's actually willing to do their jobs for us, the American people.

Adding Up The Concerns Of Americans

While millions of Americans are gearing up this week for a major television event, we highly doubt most of them are talking about the State of the Union address, like the political junkies and wonks we know.

As evidenced by the latest Pew Poll, we know that the State of the Union address - the SOTU -  isn't exactly the most important thing on the minds of most Americans right now. In fact, thanks to the push for more data-driven analysis in the media from people like Nate Silver and Ezra Klein, media organizations are doing far more polling today than they once did, though some are less ethical than others.

We only wished that media organizations paid more attention to what that polling data says.

If you looked at the news media for this first month of 2014, you'd see a great deal of stories about the scandals of major Republican politicians - and those are somewhat important stories. You'd also see an enormous and growing number of stories about another not-unimportant subject, the safety concerns surrounding athletes and fans at the Sochi Olympics in Russia. You'd also likely see more than a few stories about jobs & income inequality, a topic that - according to that same Pew Poll - is on the top of most American's minds today.

What you likely haven't seen too much of - or if you did, you just ignored it - is a topic President Obama addressed in his SOTU speech last year. Sadly, like so many other topics, Congress simply let the subject bleed to death last year.

The subject, of course, is the continuing flood of senseless gun violence and deaths in America.

From Wakefield Elementary and Purdue University, to Liberty Tech High School, there's been an average of one school shooting every two days so far this year. If one happens again today, that macabre statistic will continue. If you add in other mass shootings, like the multiple deaths at the mall in Maryland last weekend, the number of mass shooting events in America has tripled in just the last four years.

As we've referenced many times since we first published it, there are five major components to gun violence, including gun safety laws, economic inequality, corrupt political financing, media ethics, and mental health care. As we noted earlier today, data-driven analysis is making a postive change in journalism, and Obamacare is making significant strides in making mental health care available. We sincerely hope that in his adress tonight, President Obama will make a very agressive push to tackle jobs, inequality, & the economy, as well as tackle our nation's corrupt political financing this next year. As another legitimate poll from ABC & the Washington Post proved this week, Americans are well aware that Congress - especially the Republicans in Congress - can't be trusted to do much of anything.

The one part of solving our nation's gun violence problem, then, that Americans and our government still haven't really touched upon is gun safety. As evidenced by the shooting at the mall in Baltimore this past weekend, performing ultra-simplified partial background checks on some of the guns and some of the people, some of the time simply won't work. We're also well aware universal background checks won't prevent every act of gun violence. As backed up by the statistics from the Bureau of Justice, an average of 230,000 guns are stolen from law-abiding gun owners in America every year.

That said, unlike the fears surrounding the Sochi Olympics that so many media organizations are desperately clinging to, gun safety legislation is something Americans and their government can actually do something about, if we want to enough. Further, as the Pew poll confirms, defending America from terrorism - including domestic terrorism - is one of the most important concerns American citizens have today.

That Congress refuses to tackle a problem so important to so many Americans, and would rather let the problem lay there, simply doesn't add up to us.