For the last few months, followers of U.S. politics have been treated — or subjected — to a steady diet of Republican campaigns. Democrats have been mostly quiet as the GOP candidates battle among themselves for the nomination. President Barack Obama will be the Democratic Party candidate and, as president, he struggles to stay above the fray, looking and acting presidential. All the while, however, he is laying the ground work for the fall when he shifts into campaign mode.
In his 2008 bid for the White House, Mr. Obama pledged to change the way that Washington does business. He promised to heal, or at least bridge, the yawning partisan divide in that city. By every account, he failed. Preparing for the 2012 campaign, Mr. Obama has decided to reclaim that lofty vantage point, but he has introduced a populist twist, arguing that the source of the stalemate is a political system that protects a privileged few but demands sacrifices from the rest of the country. He signaled that tack — one urged on him by left-leaning supporters — in a speech in early December at Osawatomie, Kansas, that channeled U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's "New Nationalism."
Mr. Obama's State of the Union address on Jan. 24 took up the message in full throat. The over-arching theme of the speech was unity, a message with which he has begun each of his State of the Union addresses. This year, he used the military to exemplify an organization that understands that the mission — the shared goal — is what matters: "They're not consumed with personal ambition. They don't obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together." And of course, the reminder to the American people of his administration's success in finding and killing Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leaders burnishes his national security credentials.