Nation’s Reaction to Obama’s Congress Speech Gauged

JIM LEHRER:

Next tonight, reaction to last night's presidential address. Gwen Ifill has that story.

GWEN IFILL:

Under the Capitol dome last night, members of Congress attempted to gauge how their constituents would react to President Obama's first major address. Lawmakers spoke with the NewsHour's Kwame Holman.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, D-Md.:

He set out some very bold strokes here, big call to action. This was about big things, because we face a big crisis here at home.

REP. GREG WALDEN, R-Ore.:

The devil's always in the details, but Americans are hurting. I was in small business for 21 years. It's a huge unpredictable cost for all of us, and, clearly, reform's necessary.

SEN. KENT CONRAD D-N.D.:

Look, I want to be very clear: He's got the outline and a blueprint, a good beginning. The first five years of what he's proposing, I'm encouraged by. But the broader question for me is what happens the second five years.

REP. MARY FALLIN, R-Okla.:

We know that people are losing their jobs and that people face foreclosures. And we need to help people stay in their homes and do all they can to have a good-paying job. So it's just going to be working through those issues, finding common ground when we can.

GWEN IFILL:

Newspapers across the country splashed the president's speech across their front pages today, reaching constituents more directly, and on editorial pages declaring the substance of the president's proposals as sound or off the mark.

So how did the president's speech and the Republican response resonate, as they say, outside the Beltway? For that, we are joined by four editorial page editors: Nolan Finley of the Detroit News; Harold Jackson of the Philadelphia Inquirer; J.R. Labbe of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram; and Carol Hunter of the Des Moines Register.

Starting with tone — I want to start with you, Nolan Finley — how do you think the president pulled off the balance, just on tone, last night?

NOLAN FINLEY, Detroit News:

Well, on tone, I was encouraged that he sounded more hopeful than he has the first few weeks of his administration. I know former President Clinton advised him last week that he needed to be a little perkier, he needed to exude more confidence, that consumers are scared and they need to see and they need to hear a president say that things are going to get better, and I think he pulled that off last night.

GWEN IFILL:

J.R. Labbe, how did it sound to you?

J.R. LABBE, Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Well, he definitely gets points on style and delivery. Without question, this president is a gifted orator.

He sounded extremely determined and passionate. So if you were looking at the showman that he was last night, I think he hit on the points and the style of being confident and determined and hopeful, and yet realistic — at least in how he was trying to deliver his words — in what the tough road is ahead.

I think when you start to drill down in some of the substance, that's where the worry part of our "Hope and Worry" headline came in.

GWEN IFILL:

Well, we're going to come right back to that. I was to ask Harold Jackson first what he thought about the tone last night.

HAROLD JACKSON, Philadelphia Inquirer:

Well, I think it was about more than tone. I think there was quite a bit of substance in what the president had to say. It wasn't simply style.

If you evaluate his speech, if you look at it closely, you see that he clearly set an agenda for America to move beyond the economic crisis, on not just the banking and mortgage issues, but on a number of other areas where this country has been lagging in dealing with situations that affect our economy, including health care and energy policy.

GWEN IFILL:

Carol Hunter, you know, people did talk earlier this week and last week about whether the president was too doom-and-gloom. What did you hear last night?

CAROL HUNTER, Des Moines Register:

We heard general optimism. We think he pulled this tricky balancing act off pretty well.

I mean, on the one hand, he has to be realistic — that's what he said he would do throughout his campaign with the American people — and he did have some tough medicine in there, saying that what has been spent so far may not be enough and there may need to be more set aside.

Yet there were almost Churchillian overtones to this speech. He really called the nation to action and really did set forth a vision on reducing oil dependence, reforming health care, and improving our education system.