Why Obama’s UW Speech Should Have Made the News

Barack Obama gave a campaign speech yesterday on the campus of the University of Wisconsin which was largely absent from last night’s newscast. (link) Now, I will take a closer look at the content of his speech.

Obama made his points cogently, identifying the problem and the obstacles:

Think about it, when I arrived in Washington 20 months ago, my hope and my expectation was that we could pull together, all of us as Americans — Democrats and Republicans and independents — to confront the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. I hoped and expected that we could get beyond some of the old political divides between Democrats and Republicans, blue states and red states, that had prevented us from making progress for so long because although we are proud to be Democrats, we are prouder to be Americans.
Instead, what we found when we arrived in Washington was the rawest kind of politics. What we confronted was an opposition party that was still stuck on the same failed policies of the past…

He criticized the opposition:

Understand, for the last decade, the Republicans in Washington subscribed to a very simple philosophy – you cut taxes mostly for millionaires and billionaires…You cut regulations for special interests, whether it’s the banks or the oil companies or health insurance companies. Let them write their own rules. You cut back on investments in education and clean energy and research and technology.

So basically the idea was if you just put blind faith in the market, if we let corporations play by their own rules, if we leave everybody else to fend for themselves, then America would automatically grow and prosper. But that philosophy failed…

He highlighted Democratic accomplishments

And over the last 20 months — over the last 20 months, we’ve made progress… We’re no longer facing the possibility of a second depression — and I have to say, Wisconsin, that was a very real possibility when I was sworn in. We had about six months where the economy was teetering on the edge, and we could have plunged into a second depression.
Now the economy is growing again. Now the private sector has created jobs for the last eight months in a row. There are about 3 million Americans who wouldn’t be working today if not for the economic plan that we put into place. Those are facts.

To rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation, we passed Wall Street reform to make sure that a crisis like this never happens again, so that these reforms are going to end the era of taxpayer-funded bailouts forever –reforms that will stop mortgage lenders from taking advantage of homeowners, reforms that’ll stop credit card companies from hitting you with hidden fees or jacking up your rates without any reason.

But we didn’t stop there. We started investing again in American research and American technology and homegrown American clean energy because I don’t want solar panels and wind turbines and electric cars of the future built in Europe or Asia. I want them built right here in the United States of America with American workers.

To help middle-class families get ahead, we passed a tax cut for 95 percent of working families. I want to repeat that: We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families, because if you were listening to the other side, you’d think we raised taxes.

But, again, we deal in facts. And the fact is, we cut taxes for 95 percent of working families. We passed 16 different tax cuts for America’s small business owners, who create the majority of jobs in this country. We passed health care reform that will stop insurance companies from denying you coverage or dropping your coverage because you’re sick.

And he was sure to link his specific audience, young people, to his programs and policies:

And by the way, Madison, let me just see a show of hands, how many people are under the age of 26 in this crowd? Every single one of you, when you get out of college, if you have not found a job that offers you health care, you’re going to be able to stay on your parents’ health care until you’re 26 years old, so you don’t end up taking the risk of getting sick and being bankrupt.

We finally fixed the student loan system so that tens of billions of dollars — tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies that were going to big banks, they were acting as middlemen, and the student loan programs were going through these financial intermediaries. They were taking billions of dollars of profits. We said, well, let’s cut out the middleman. We’ll give the loans directly to students and that means million more students are going to be able to take advantage of grants and student loans.

And by the way, we also kept a promise I made on the day that I announced my candidacy. We have removed combat troops from Iraq and we have ended our combat mission in Iraq.

But he also did not shy away from the challenges and limitations:

We have made progress over the last 20 months. And that is the progress that you worked so hard for in 2008. Now, we didn’t get everything done. Sometimes people say, well, you know, this item is not done and that idea — well, I’ve only been here two years, guys. If you look at the checklist, we’ve already covered about 70 percent, so I figured I needed to have something to do for the next couple of years.

Linking their stories and his to the issues involved:

I believe in an America that gave my grandfather the chance to go to college because of the GI Bill. I believe in an America that gave my grandparents the chance to buy a home because of the Federal Housing Authority. I believe in an America that gave their children and grandchildren the chance to fulfill our dreams thanks to scholarships and student loans like some of you are on. That’s the America I know. That’s the choice in this election.

Obama, of course, told the story of the last two years from his partisan point of view.  He celebrated the Democrats’ accomplishments, criticized the Republicans because they obstructed his attempts to address the pressing problems of the day, and he further criticized, even ridiculed, the alternatives they proposed as old and warn out, actually the policies that created the financial and economic crises.  He outlined the clear choice and linked his audience’s hopes and dreams to the choice he was presenting.

This is Obama the politician, not the Chief Executive.  He was doing politics, not governing.  But shouldn’t the news take note of this turn?  Shouldn’t they contrast his account of the last two years with the Republicans account?  Shouldn’t they analyze what each side is now proposing, including the way they propose it?

That the 24/7 news, of the left, right and the center, did not devote the air time to the forty-five minute speech indicates their interpretive frame for politics.  In fact, between the Republicans proposal of a Contract with America and the Democrats legislative accomplishments and direction, which Obama highlighted in Madison, there is a real substantive, Tocqueville might define it as big, principled politics going on.  Yet the media reports small.

Perhaps the difference between my students and me on politics in the United States (link) is that they accurately depicted the way the media reports, while I am responding to the parts of the political performance that often stands outside the cable news frame, but nonetheless is highly consequential in the long run.  In cable news frame, the commentary does not illuminate the alternative political principles and philosophies, the alternative marshaling of evidence to support the competing political positions, nor provide a guide for understanding the cogency of the alternatives.  It just works from preconceived ideas.  It misinforms, overlooking the fact that there is serious big politics now going on.