With the left disheartened by the Mass-acre last week and health care reform's freshly dismal prospects, the right energized by the apparent success of their intransigence and the need to rally the country amidst difficult circumstance, President Obama was like a gymnast needing to perfectly execute a maneuver of highest degree of difficulty at last night's State of the Union.  No one's surprise, he nailed it.  He rallied weak kneed Democrats with a reminder that they were elected to get things done, not "run for the hills."  He leaned into the Republicans by staking out a variety of center-right positions including nuclear power, off-shore drilling, deficit reduction and small-business tax breaks while chiding them for privledging politics over leadership.  Most importantly, he reminded Americans again and again of the mess he inherited and the steps he had done to fix things.

The State of the Union proved one thing conclusively: Barack Obama's charisma remains unmatched in current politics.  He was charming, funny, convincing, self-effacing and owned the speech going away.  He cleared the black cloud of the special Massachusetts election with the joke: "After last week its clear I'm not doing health care reform because its good politics." The left wanted him to tell the House to pass the Senate Health Care bill, but maybe he did.  He littered the speech with references to bills the House has already passed that the Senate hasn't: financial reform, cap and trade and a jobs bill.  If the clear message of the speech was jobs, jobs, jobs, the hidden message was "The House rocks, get your act together Senate."

As for the jobs, well the White House sounds pretty populist these days.  The quote from that septuagenarian in Massachusetts about stopping the handouts and send everyone back to work clearly struck a chord with the administration.  The filet of the speech was about financial reform, the choices he made during the crisis, and creating new jobs which Obama said was his top priority in 2010.  If unemployment stays above 10% then no matter what, the Democrats are screwed in the midterms.  Obama took several stabs at blaming the whole economic mess on Bush, but in a bad economy incumbents lose and the Democrats are feeling awfully incumbent right now.  Tackling financial reform might offer a popular program if job gains fail to materialize, but noting that 2 million jobs were created by the stimulus is an easy fact to remember.

Obama all but dared the the Republicans to participate in government.  On health care reform, which the Republicans curiously stood up and cheered for, he noted that "if anyone has a better approach... tell me."  He noted that he has cut taxes for everyone and then set up a fiscal panel to tackle the deficit from the spending side.  That is the "starve the beast" conservatives have been waiting for, but coming from the mouth of a "leftist" must make their heads spin.  I don't believe any Republican will actively engage with Obama's process, but the offer felt sincere anyway.

Much of the speech was a hodge-podge of promises including a new law on educational loans that limits repayment to 10% of income and gauarantees the loan will be forgiven in 20 years, or 10 with a career in the public service.  The promise to work to allow gays into the military by the end of the year might help to placate his critics on the left, though the cold reception of the Joint Chiefs indicated that it will not be an easy accomplishment.  His fiery denouncement of the recent Supreme Court decision to allow unlimited corporate financing in elections while staring down at the court surrounded by cheering legislators was an inspired moment.

His close was even better:

But remember this — I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I could do it alone. Democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That's just how it is.

Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths and pointing fingers. We can do what's necessary to keep our poll numbers high and get through the next election instead of doing what's best for the next generation.

But I also know this: If people had made that decision 50 years ago or 100 years ago or 200 years ago, we wouldn't be here tonight. The only reason we are here is because generations of Americans were unafraid to do what was hard, to do what was needed even when success was uncertain, to do what it took to keep the dream of this nation alive for their children and their grandchildren.

That is a rousing call to forward progress, even for a Congress that seems clinically dysfunctional.  Many left-wing analysts have taken the tact of "we knew he could do a good speech, now he has to get something done."  Congress is such a morass that if nothing came of the speech it would surprise no one, but at least for a night it seemed that anything was possible.