The jobs, jobs, jobs rallying call, the odd mea culpa, a nod (via more jobs) to
the environment—there wasn’t much in Obama’s State of the Union speech last
night that was hugely surprising.
But what did surprise me, and the couple of ex-pats I watched it with, was the audience. Tonic Bar on frigid Times Square was packed with Manhattan Young Dems who cheered, whooped, and occasionally jeered at the flat screen TVs during the 70-minute speech. This scene would never occur in London.
There are several reasons for this, the most obvious being that there’s no State of the Nation equivalent—the nearest is the distinctly unsexy annual Budget, delivered with none of the theater of the SOTU.
And I suspect many of those hot Young Dems had come for “networking” purposes. Networking in plunging Hervé Leger dresses, no less. Either way, it's another thing Brits don’t do as well as you lot.
And then there’s our Prime Minister, unelected, two-and-a-half disastrous years in, who has all the charisma of a slice of stale bread. But I don’t think even a newly minted Tony Blair would have packed out a Leicester Square bar.
Perhaps it’s Americans’ unfailing sense of optimism even in these dark times, a tenet, of course, of Obama’s speech, which brings them out. We Brits like to protest—I don’t know anyone my age who didn’t turn out for the anti Iraq War march in February 2003, “Make Tea, Not War” banners and all. We’ve never had anyone to inspire us the way Obama has here—but even if we had, I’m not sure we’d be able to shake off that cynicism.
His popularity may be at an all-time low, his spirits dashed after Massachusetts, but at least New Yorkers still care about and believe in politics enough to hear Obama speak—he still has an audience.
But what did surprise me, and the couple of ex-pats I watched it with, was the audience. Tonic Bar on frigid Times Square was packed with Manhattan Young Dems who cheered, whooped, and occasionally jeered at the flat screen TVs during the 70-minute speech. This scene would never occur in London.
There are several reasons for this, the most obvious being that there’s no State of the Nation equivalent—the nearest is the distinctly unsexy annual Budget, delivered with none of the theater of the SOTU.
And I suspect many of those hot Young Dems had come for “networking” purposes. Networking in plunging Hervé Leger dresses, no less. Either way, it's another thing Brits don’t do as well as you lot.
And then there’s our Prime Minister, unelected, two-and-a-half disastrous years in, who has all the charisma of a slice of stale bread. But I don’t think even a newly minted Tony Blair would have packed out a Leicester Square bar.
Perhaps it’s Americans’ unfailing sense of optimism even in these dark times, a tenet, of course, of Obama’s speech, which brings them out. We Brits like to protest—I don’t know anyone my age who didn’t turn out for the anti Iraq War march in February 2003, “Make Tea, Not War” banners and all. We’ve never had anyone to inspire us the way Obama has here—but even if we had, I’m not sure we’d be able to shake off that cynicism.
His popularity may be at an all-time low, his spirits dashed after Massachusetts, but at least New Yorkers still care about and believe in politics enough to hear Obama speak—he still has an audience.
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