The political debate we need

By Steve Frank

President Obama's State of the Union address was widely regarded as the opening salvo of his reelection bid and an attempt to frame the general election debate, which, channeling public anger at Washington and Wall Street, promises to be the most populist in decades.

Ever since December, when Obama delivered another much-discussed address in Osawatomie, Kan., I've been brushing up on Progressive Era rhetoric to prepare for the election campaign. Because, as the president's choice of location highlighted, we've been here before.

Osawatomie is where Teddy Roosevelt in 1910 delivered one of the most influential political speeches in American history, the one in which he announced his stand for a "square deal" for the common man and reaffirmed his belief in the responsibility of government to deal with social problems.

"When I say that I am for the square deal," Roosevelt said, "I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity."

So when Obama told the nation, "We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules," I heard the echo of earlier times.

But what struck me about the president's remarks was less the welcome relief from the personal attacks of the Republican primary ruckus - because of course a State of the Union address is not a stump speech - than the contrast with those earlier times and what it had to say said about the limits of today's mainstream political debates.

If you tuned in only to the primary contests and heard only the competing charges of "vulture capitalism" and influence peddling, you'd think that we were having a very nasty but full-throated debate about the kind of political arrangements that will best serve the economy and the interests of most Americans.

But of course we're not. When Obama called for tax reform that followed the "Buffet rule" (requiring the hyper-wealthy to pay proportionally as much in taxes as their secretaries), he added: "Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary? Most Americans would call that common sense."