Comments on: How High Does a Dead Cat Bounce? Assessing the Likely Impact of Obama’s State of the Union speech http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2010/01/29/how-high-does-a-dead-cat-bounce-assessing-the-likely-impact-of-obamas-state-of-the-union-speech/ A NonPartisan Analysis of Presidential Politics Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:45:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Olivier Knox http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2010/01/29/how-high-does-a-dead-cat-bounce-assessing-the-likely-impact-of-obamas-state-of-the-union-speech/comment-page-1/#comment-8951 Olivier Knox Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:29:00 +0000 http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/?p=7361#comment-8951 Just to make a variation on the argument I always make here: Polling data makes it hard to gauge things like “arrested his slide in the polls.” That’s difficult anyway (will the just announced 4thQ 2009 growth figures have a bigger impact?), but I think it should be at least noted.

You highlighted what I always look for at the State of the Union: Presidential priorities, and how they overlap with the priorities of his party’s elected officials. That has ramifications for the president’s agenda (if House/Senate Dems have misgivings about where he is placing the emphasis, for example) and for electoral politics (no one wants a same-party president who is perceived as out of touch).

To make this a little more concrete: If House Dems want a jobs focus and the president comes out with a space mission…PROBLEM.

Cheers,
Olivier

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