After concluded his fifth State of the Union address Tuesday evening, President Obama is following his predecessors by hitting the road to push his State of the Union message.
Today he was in North Carolina to kick off a campaign-style push to trumpet his agenda where he said, “I want to be honest, we are not going to bring back every job that’s been lost to outsourcing and automation over the last decade…no job in America should go unfilled because somebody doesn’t have the right skills to fill that job, if there’s a job open we should train those folks right away so they can get those jobs.”
Tuesday evening’s address featured themes and proposals that championed the middle class and economic growth. The President highlighted plans to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., address climate change, and raise the minimum wage. He topped it off with an emotional plea to pass gun reform legislation saying, “”Hadiya’s parents, Nate and Cleo, are in this chamber tonight, along with more than two dozen Americans whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence. They deserve a vote. Gabby Giffords’ deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence – they deserve a simple vote.”
The president’s speech was followed by the dueling GOP responses. The official party response was given by Florida Senator Marco Rubio. He focused on traditional conservative values but his message was overshadowed by his less-than-stealth grab for a drink of water during the live speech. When that happened twitter exploded generating 9,200 tweets per minute and creating an instant social media frenzy. Even Rubio himself joined in by tweeting out a picture of the water bottle in an attempt to regain control of the conversation. But it’s still dominating today’s conversation, even overshadowing the Tea Party response delivered by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.
Be sure to tune in at 3pm when NBC News Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss joins the conversation to discuss the president’s message last night and his road agenda this week.
Abby Borovitz