I was walking the dog tonight, thinking about my obligatory State of the Union post.  The theme is, An America Built to Last, and I suspect President Obama will pepper his speech with a number of successful, local initiatives across the country (a peek at the First Lady's balcony box guests might give you a hint… a waitress, a tech guru, a health care reform beneficiary, a student, a teacher.  Oh, and Admiral McRaven, now the head of Southern Command up the road at MacDill.  He used to oversee the Navy SEALs and their special operations not that long ago.  I'd guess the president may reference the killing of Osama bin Laden.  Just a guess.)

Hey, putting together a SOTU is no easy task.  But you've got to think Favreau and the White House speechwriting crew had one theme in mind as they pressed forward: stay upbeat.  In fact, I think the previews for this State of the Union was delivered in my old home neighborhood of Harlem at the Apollo Theater just the other day.

You're not going to see Gingrich or Romney or Santorum, or, god help us, Ron Paul sing Al Green any time soon.

I was going to talk a bit about that, but instead I ran in to my City Council Member, Dr. Jennifer Salmon.  As it happens, she lives the next block down from us.  I see her and Don and Michael out all the time, usually when I'm walking the dog with Emmy. 

I am usually pretty loathe to heap political advice on candidates unless they ask for it, and Jennifer is obviously pretty smart, but if she had asked, I might have given her the same advice I'd give to the White House speechwriting crew: stay positive.  Stay upbeat.  

Yeah, people are hurting out there.  The jobs situation is still an unmitigated disaster.  People are unsure about the future.  Yes, they're going to expect to see concrete examples of what the president plans to do tonight.  And I'd tell Jennifer that the same thing applies here in Gulfport (I'm betting she knows this…).

I'll be tuning in tonight here from Gulfport.  You should, too.  Let's see what course the president lays before us.  I'm betting you'll smile at least once during the course of the speech.  

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Post by Benjamin Kirby of The Spencerian read more of this blogger's posts at http://warnerkirby.blogs.com/spencerian/