President Obama gave his first State of the Union address last night. As usual, he was calm, collected and offered a lot of important ideas for the nation to discuss. After a year in the White House, and in the middle of a political perfect storm of the Massachusetts special election, Haiti and struggling health care reform, Obama’s overriding message was pretty simple, and familiar to most parents: Time to stop horsing around and get to work – that room isn’t going to clean itself.
And how is he going to clean up America’s incredibly messy room? Obama is not giving up on his legislative agenda, nor is he giving up on making the two parties play nicely together. He reminded the Democrats that they still have the largest majority in decades and they should not “run for the hills” because they lost one Senate seat and he scolded Republicans for prioritizing party politics over the change the country needs. All of the agenda items that the President hopes Congress will work together, and with him, to achieve were wrapped up into one central goal – putting the recovering economy on sound footing.
The State of the Union address is a political tradition that goes back to the first days of the republic. In these seminal speeches, Presidents lay out their agenda’s for the year to come and discuss the triumphs and problems of the year past. It also provides a great opportunity to parents to introduce their children to politics. Mr. Obama, one of the greatest orators of our generation, is an especially great experience for children because no matter what he’s talking about, he’s never boring. If you watched the address last night with your children, challenge your kids to a State of the Union based round of Wiki-Wars. If you didn’t watch the address last night, sit down with your kids this weekend and watch it together. Listen to what they think of the President and his agenda. You’ll be surprised exactly how much they have to say!
