After an election, the winning party typically tries to pass the policies it campaigned on while the losers go back to the drawing board to try to work up a more appealing agenda. But last night’s dueling speeches revealed, strangely, the reverse.
President Obama’s agenda has become much more ambitious since the election, ranging from universal pre-kindergarten to raising the minimum wage to gun control to immigration reform. But neither the Republican Party’s agenda nor its rhetoric has changed a whit.
Ignore the awkward sip of water. That was shoddy advance work — the water should’ve been closer! — not poor oratory. Focus simply on the text. Marco Rubio’s response to the State of the Union was like a greatest-hits album from the Romney campaign. If it’s easy to imagine these words coming straight from Mitt Romney’s mouth:
MORE: Where were Marco Rubio’s new ideas?.