As ever, the State of the Union speech has been picked over ad nauseam by the press, and commentators both pro and con allowed to share their views on TV and in the press. Those who enjoyed the speech were primarily those who supported President Bush’s re-election campaign, while those who denigrated it were primarily those who supported Kerry in the recent election. In other words, it won over none of those commentators on either side of the spectrum – no surprise there.

But according to polls conducted by CNN and others with ordinary people throughout the country, those who listened to the speech responded much more favourably to questions about President Bush after the speech than before it – by about 15%, apparently. This is worth looking at. What was it about this speech that had such a powerful impact? Wasn’t President Bush just reiterating many of the same policies that he outlined during the election campaign? He was, but now that the “ra ra ra” aspects of campaigning have been dispensed with, President Bush is able to articulate his policies in a more measured fashion, explaining his stance and providing the supporting evidence on subjects such as social security.

This, along with last week’s inaugural address, also marks the first time since the Republican Convention that a substantial speech has been shown in full on national TV. During the campaign, the positions of both the President and Senator Kerry were reduced to soundbites, as is customary, so that the Social Security debate was reduced to “Social Security is almost bankrupt” versus “Bush wants to take away your benefits.” In the State of the Union speech, Bush was able to explain the real situation, which is more nuanced than soundbites are able to convey. The fact is that Social Security will not fall apart tomorrow, or even next year, if nothing is done to reform it. But, at the same time, if nothing is done over the longer term, it will run out of funding, which will lead to either a need for increased taxes or a cut in benefits. Ironically, it is the “do nothing” position which would put future benefits at risk, not the reformers’ position.

President Bush used the customary terminology to describe this situation, saying that Social Security faces bankruptcy unless the system is reformed. Nancy Pelosi and others rejected this terminology as alarmist, but conceded that the system faces a funding shortfall if it is not reformed. In a business, a chronic inability to fund obligations would lead to just that – bankruptcy – but apparently this standard terminology is unacceptable when used to describe the Social Security quandary. Why should this be? It’s simple – bankruptcy is a concept most ordinary people can relate to – it withdraws the cloak of complexity the opponents of reform want to use to convince people that the problem is not simple to define, and therefore not simple to solve. Allow people to see how simple the problem is, and President Bush’s desire to reform the system is much more compelling. Hence the Democrats’ unwillingness to submit to the logical clarifying terminology.

On other issues, too, the President explained his policies in his trademark, straightforward style, and viewers responded positively to that too. On healthcare, foreign policy, immigration and other policy areas the President discussed in his speech, he was rightly applauded for setting an overall framework and calling on the combined legislators of the House and Senate to prepare bills to bring these policies into effect.

And, of course, there were the non-verbal sections of the speech – the introduction of invited guests from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the parents of a soldier killed in Iraq. The image of those parents embracing and being embraced by the Iraqi pro-democracy activist was a fitting confirmation of the rightness of the war in Iraq, regardless of the presence or absence of weapons of mass destruction.

In all, the speech set a solid foundation for the second Bush administration. He made it clear that he was serious about his campaign promises, as those who know him and his style could have told us, and does not intend to conform with the supposed precedent of lame-duck second-term presidents. Assuming there are no real or imagined scandals, and assuming the Democrats don’t follow through on their anti-democratic filibuster plans, President Bush should be able to get a great deal done in his second term.

It is conceivable that by the end of that second term, we could have significant progress towards peace in Israel and Palestine, fledgling democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq, reform underway in Social Security and the tax system, and many other positive changes. The world in 2008 could look very different indeed from today’s world, and this would set things up nicely for President Bush’s heir, whoever that may be.