State of the Union Address

I think the President makes it pretty clear that there is political friction and disagreements, but emphasizes how it is important. He does stress that cooperation is key as well. It seemed that most points that were brought up were agreeable for both major parties (I saw more bipartisan applause in this State of the Union than any other I can remember from the last decade).

If anything his tone is serious yet welcoming. He admits that we are struggling behind other developed nations in a number of areas and we need to catch up. He doesn't do it in a voice of disappointment, blame, or an oncoming resulting cataclysm but more of we can do better. It was good to hear him admit that we are struggling instead of sugar triple-coating the situation.

There were a number of ideas being pushed but they all seemed to be geared towards being reasonable or agreeable for any individual. I am personally encouraged by his emphasis on science, technology and education. I was relieved to hear him admit that we are behind many nations in these areas and stress how important it is to invest in these areas.

Overall I found it to be a very well done address with great presentation. Anybody exposed to politics, however, knows that lots of things are said but what is actually done can be dramatically different. So while the address was encouraging, it is the subsequent actions that will determine persuasion.

Obama addressed how it is important to cooperate with one another and listen to all opinions. This helps to shape a majority of the content of his speech, as many topics (i.e. healthcare law) focus on incorporating all voices, as Obama states himself that "anything can be improved".

Obama's speech was done with passion, and he stayed very calm and serious throughout. His use of eye contact, dynamic tone, and intelligent pauses taken throughout, helped to communicate the key points very well to his audience. Overall, I thought his speech was both spoken and written well. I additionally felt as though he was admitting and expressing his concerns about our country, making his thoughts sounds genuine.

Both parties seemed to have positive reactions to his comments and I was additionally pleased by his notion of referencing the concerns about the healthcare law, investing in clean energy technology, and thoughts towards education.

I did not feel as though he was using a very persuasive tone; although I was moved by his ideas for the future and his passion. The specific actions taken will determine whether I am encouraged and persuaded in the end.

In the President’s State of the Union Address, President Obama knew his audience was a majority of Republicans and expressed his thoughts and feelings that Democrats and Republicans should work together to get things done. He expressed his thoughts and feelings so that it would bring about bipartisanship. For example, he stated that Republicans and Democrats were sitting together tonight to listen to his address and he wanted that same atmosphere in the next two years as well. He tried to keep the content of his speech somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum and did not state his side of the issues too much. He seemed to want to know what Republican’s side of issues and that they should speak up so that the Congress could discuss and debate about things for the good of the country. There was a lot of bipartisan applause with some major issues; however, looking at the Speaker of the House John Boehner, there was still some tension. While Joe Biden applauded at nearly everything, it seemed that it took John Boehner effort to applaud at certain issues. Again, throughout his speech, he encouraged “working together to bring about change” on nearly every major issue today, such as the health care reform, education funding, immigration, unemployment etc. He tried to keep a light tone by adding in a few jokes here and there, however, most of his speech had a more serious tone to it. He kept great eye contact with the entire audience and used good hand signals. His thoughts seemed sincere when he was talking about how our country needs to catch up with the rest of the world academically. This, I feel he was the most passionate about- our future generations. I don’t believe he used a very persuasive tone, but he showed enthusiasm in working hard to get things accomplished in the next two years.

I think that overall, Obama took advantage of an interesting position that he is placed in. Because he is already in a position of extreme power, he didn't need to utilize as persuasive of a tone in the speech. Though he needs to convince the American public that his policies are the right ones, the State of the Union Address is more a platform to inform, encourage, and re-direct both the legislature and citizens.

His speech-writers continued to use the tactic of 'connecting' with the American people by using a few of their stories. Because this tactic worked during last year's address, as well as in Obama's campaign, it was worth using again. Though using the 'average Joe's' makes for an effective comparison, I find myself less and less impressed with it as his speeches continue. I did think that it was politically necessary of him to mention the shootings in Tuscon, but I didn't like that he twisted them around into a political statement; I believe that he should have let a tragedy be a tragedy without bringing a political agenda to the table.

Being a future science teacher, I was encouraged by the suggestion that he will continue to promote teacher positions, but as with any presidential promise, actions speak louder than words. Overall, I think that while Obama is certainly an effective speaker, and is highly effective at utilizing an optimistic turn, Americans are still waiting for real results rather than just a speech.

With certain events that have occurred in the United States (struggling economy, Tucson shooting, etc.), I think Obama went with what could be considered as an "inspirational" route in regards to his speech. He discusses the country working together, specifically Republicans and Democrats working together, backing new innovations, creating a different outlook on certain topics, and obviously, improving the United States overall.
Obama is such an important political figure and an impressive speech giver that he uses these things and the current situation of the country to his advantage to get his policies known and hopefully encourage the people into a desired direction.
Obama is a pro at relating to the people and relaying his policies and intentions in an enlightening and desirable manner. He is professional, acknowledging, intelligent, and inspiring through his words.
Because I believe in many of Obama's policies, outlook on what the government should be and that he is a great leader, I consider myself persuaded by him. However, I do agree with many people that the changes Obama has promised haven't been achieved or as prominent as most who support him would like. His genuine appearance and ability to persuade through words makes him an inspirational and effective president.

Overall I was pleased with what Obama said. He talked a lot about working together and revitalizing faith in the democratic system, which I do believe is needed right now. I was glad to hear about his plan for posting a website on government spending. I have heard a lot of pessimistic views on government spending and I’m glad people can now clarify many of those misled beliefs.

Most of his plans did sound promising for creating a better more prosperous United States, if he can follow through with his plans. A couple of things worried me though. One thing that worried me was his promotion of biofuels. Biofuels take land away from food and were in a time were growing more food is going to be crucial to feeding a population of 9 billion by 2050. Biofuels will also continue to grow and consolidate power in the food industry, which has been the cause of rural community deterioration since small farmers cannot compete. He also talked about the new trade agreement with South Korea, but many people do not know the background of that situation and what led into that agreement. I won’t go into details on this post but it’s not as black and white as it sounds. Also he made reference to trading with Columbia, Panama and the Asia South Pacific. Many of the trade policies and subsidies created by the United States do not treat other countries fairly. The issues in Columbia are fairly well known and I was surprised Obama talked about increasing trade without reference to correcting unfair trade policies.

My first impression was I'm sure exactly what he wanted it to be. I just wanted to start being a better citizen and participating more in making America a better place to be. I think that kind of speaks for itself about how I felt about the speech. The topics he brought up were things that are actually very important and relevant to me, which was a pleasant surprise. I had never watched one of the State of the Union addresses before because i had always assumed they would be about more in-depth political issues that i would not know/care about.

The topics he talked about were things I have started to become more and more concerned about, such as the environment/fuel sources, the economy and budget deficit, and health care spending. Every single idea or proposal he gave was something that sounded very appealing to me. The problem is, I wish I knew to what extent he would be able or willing to follow though with these ideas. I think the tax loopholes should be closed for large businesses, but I don't know how much power huge businesses like the ones that would be affected by changes have. I do believe that Obama does have enough power to affect the amount of domestic spending we do and should be able to change it.

As for the speech itself, I think how much he convinced me sort of shows that he or his speech writers did a decent job. The one attempt at humor was sort of funny, but mostly cheesy i thought. Other than that, the mood pretty much stayed sobering and serious. This is totally appropriate for a speech of this subject and importance. I was also impressed by Obama's eye contact and lack of movement, except when it accented his points. The way he connected with the american people, which was his audience, was also something that stood out to me. I think this is one of the hardest parts of making a speech, and is something that i realize now is the most worth it.

A lot of other people already went over how I felt about the Address. I liked the timing and pausing of the speech. It gave time to comprehend and think about what was said but wasn't too slow.

Becoming more of the "American family" with the political parties was a good choice because of the Republican and Democratic audience. It was nice to be more civil about the parties and the political issues than during campaigns.

I felt like Obama was being owning up to our stature. Yes, we did have a major recession and we are behind other competing nations, but I feel like it could be a lot worse. Overall I felt more hopeful about the future and our aims as a nation. His tone and confidence really made the speech.

I really enjoyed what President Obama had to say. Not many times do I actually take the time to listen to his speeches, so it was enjoyable to hear his point of view. I liked how he wants everyone to work together. He see's it as difficult to improve America without the cooperation from everyone, and i strongly agree with his point. He brought up Tucson incident and how that could happen to anyone, and that little girl could be anyones girl. It made me think how scary yet true that is, and how everyone working together could maybe prevent such things from happening later on.

I thought that President Obama's speech was very interesting. Personally I am not very well educated with politics so it was nice to listen to what is going on in our country. It was pretty evident that there was a little tension between the two parties at the speech and I thought President Obama did a nice job with trying to make to two parties work together as one. He mentioned many times that we all need to be on the same page and work together to make our country work. I also was very interested when President Obama began speaking about the public health bill and how there is going to be a website that shows exactly what we are spending our money on as a country. I think this website will help a lot of citizens have a better understanding with what is going on in our country.

Overall it was nice to just watch Obama speak and be able to connect with his audience.

I really enjoyed listening and reading President Obama's speech to the State of the Union. To begin, I believe Obama always does an incredible job relating to the entire United States of America even though he is still the leader of us all. For an example, he touches upon the incident in Tucson, Arizona which had the entire country watching. As he began with this opening to his speech, he was able to set the mood for his address and really connect with his audience. He displayed how much he cared for everyone who had lost someone in Tucson and was able to show how this has/will affect America as a whole.
Secondly, I have never really been a big fan of politics and to be honest this was my first state of the union address I have ever watched. Although I was unsure as to what was going on in the beginning, President Obama was able to dumb it down to a level that me and even someone who didn't know what politics was could even understand. I briefly spoke on the topic of Sputnik and how the Russians had beat us into space, but was again able to relate that to our economy. Although we were slow then our education and economics have been exceeding for the past decade and will (if not already have) exceeded the ideas of my other countries. I also thought it was important that he spoke on the jobs for our upcoming Americans. He relayed that a lot of the jobs that are easy to get now will need new and improved education to acheive them in the future. Through this I believe he assisted many individuals watching his speech that education helps and as long as one sticks with it, it will greatly help in the end.
In the end I really liked listening the to leader of your nation speak and shed light on issues that I didn't even know were going on. I honestly can say that after watching this speech, I will definitely tune into his and other president's future speeches to see and hear what exactly is going on here in America.

I found the President's State of the Union Speech to be uplifting and mobilizing. To start off, he addressed the fact that we won't get anywhere if we cannot work together. I feel like this is a major issue in our country right now. People are too focused on "what side" they are on, rather than what needs to actually be accomplished. Democrat or Republican, we need to start meeting in the middle.

Another aspect that I found to be specifically important was the aspect of education in our country. It really is not enough to just graduate from high school anymore, there is too much competition out there. Getting a college education is vital to our nation's future success. With many other countries at higher levels than us, it automatically puts our country at a disadvantage. I thought it was important that Mr. Obama stated that there needs to be a strict focus on promoting learning at a young age. If there are higher learning expectations for kids, they will in turn grasp the value that learning has.

On a side note, I was excited to hear that there are plans to incorporate high-speed railways in our country! They are so much more efficient, and I think having an alternative like that would really cut down on so many people driving in America.

Overall, I thought that the President was extremely efficient in delivering his speech. He has a certain way of being able to relate to everyone, which probably makes him so easy to listen to! There were various subjects that were addressed, so the audience was wide-ranging. I noticed that he also incorporated examples into the speech, which really puts things into perspective for the listener. He is a very charismatic and tactful speaker!

I though Obama's speech was well organized and I followed it well. It flowed well between topic changing. During the speech I thought back a lot to the readings about knowing and understanding your audience. I feel as though this is quite important and difficult when addressing the entire country. It is hard to respond to every issue and talk within the boundaries of each demographic that our country has. However the way he started off the speech by addressing the Tucson event was a way to bring the entire audience together in a mutual feeling against what has happened.

I also enjoyed his anecdotes throughout the speech. The way he chose "average" Americans and described their struggles and what they have achieved connected me to what he was saying even more. He also began and ended his speech with references to American Dream and how these roofer brothers, school in Colorado and driller achieved what they did.

Another thing I liked the push for joining forces and stop being enemies within the country and politics. It was interesting to see how the congress reacted sitting together and not by party. It changes the vibe of the audience and integrates them more as one being instead of split interest groups.

However the whole Sputnik reference did not catch me, I know what Sputnik was but I can not relate to that feeling of the country at the time. I also heard afterward that 75% of Americans were not alive when the Sputnik was so while it was a good metaphor it was not as translatable as something more recent.

Also, I can't believe he has been working on the speech since Thanksgiving! I guess it really puts the speeches we are writing into perspective.