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Trying to Prove He’s the Same Old Obama

He took office a year ago promising to change Washington. On Wednesday, President Obama tried to convince viewers that Washington hasn’t changed him.

Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address was as much about his state of mind as the nation’s: the president repeatedly asserted that he feels as strongly about the impasse in the capital as ordinary Americans do.

“From the day I took office, I have been told that addressing our larger challenges is too ambitious, that such efforts would be too contentious, that our political system is too gridlocked, and that we should just put things on hold for awhile,” Mr. Obama said. “For those who make these claims, I have one simple question: How long should we wait?”

In the age of instant communication, a State of the Union address is less a speech than a chance to reboot. Presidents use the solemnity of the setting to reset expectations. It’s an hour (or more) of deference in a clattering, noisy world, a moment when the president holds forth on all the news networks, and can readjust his message.

And Mr. Obama did just that, at times using an informal, interlocutive style that made the speech seem as much like a town meeting as a joint session of Congress.

He is known for giving eloquent speeches, and also for a professorial coolness when explaining policy details. Wednesday night, Mr. Obama used a mix of humor and stern exhortation to remind voters why they elected him — even as he promised that he would not let electoral politics derail economic reform.

It was a populist message delivered with patrician restraint, a presidential performance tinged with a little of the anti-establishment zeal of the Tea Party movement — a Green Tea movement. “And if there’s one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans, it’s that we all hated the bank bailout,” Mr. Obama said. “I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal.”

The Republican response was almost as carefully choreographed as the president’s address — mindful of last year’s much-ridiculed performance by Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.

This time, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia spoke from the State House surrounded by a winsome, multicultural selection of colleagues and supporters who clapped throughout, as if at a State of the Union of their own.

Mr. McDonnell was respectful of the president, even pointing out where he and his party agreed with Mr. Obama, but cast his objections as a populist protest against big government. “What government should not do is pile on more taxation, regulation and litigation that kill jobs and hurt the middle class,” Mr. McDonnell said.

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