The President in Manitowoc, WI

The broad, non-ideological vision the president spelled out last night seemed directed at winning the hearts and minds of voters who want to see Democrats and Republicans work together to tackle the deficit, the tax code and high health-care costs. While he defended the health-care overhaul, Obama also said he was open to ways to improve it. He also spoke about reforming the tax code, reorganizing government, and banning earmarks — issues with broad Republican support — as other areas important to strengthening America’s foundation.

“Here in America we play to win; we don’t play not to lose,” Obama said. “Part of what I wanted to communicate last night is: Having gone through a tough time, having gone through a recession, having seen so many jobs lost, having seen the financial markets take a swoon, you get a sense that a lot of folks have been feeling like ‘well, we’ve just gotta play not to lose.’ We can’t take that attitude.”

Obama’s emphasis on “winning the future” includes efforts to rein in government spending responsibly. Last night, he proposed a five-year freeze in annual domestic spending that he says will cut $400 billion from the deficit over the next decade. While critics say the president was too vague about his agenda — how he would reach the goals he has laid out and what specific programs he would cut — the White House says many of those details will be included in the budget for fiscal year 2012, set for release in mid-February.

And yeah, they want to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. These Baggers are out of their minds. Once Americans–especially older Americans–realize the peril in which they have put themselves by putting these reactionaries in power, the polls are going to start moving in the other direction. Believe it.

By the way, below, this is how people saw the President’s speech last night. National Public Radio used something called a word cloud generator to find out from listeners what touched them the most about the State of the Union Address. The listeners were asked describe the President’s speech in three words, and this is what came up from the 12,000 words the public radio network received. NPR also divided its findings into three political affiliations: Dems, Repubs and Independents. It’s rather fascinating about what comes up.

It was a good speech, not a great speech, but it was the speech that the President needed to make.

Salmon, of course, refers to the President’s joke in his speech. Apparently, it scored. I can only hope that he scores on other fronts, but that still remains to be seen.