The New York Times: President Obama pledged on Tuesday night to use government power to balance the scale between America’s rich and the rest of the public, trying to present an election-year choice between continued leadership toward an economy “built to last” and what he called irresponsible policies of the past that caused an economic collapse.”
The Washington Post: The economy continues to struggle and Americans are largely pessimistic, but dueling events Tuesday showed why in politics it's good to be the incumbent.
“Already down, Congress got kicked by President Barack Obama in the last State of the Union of his first term Tuesday night. Republicans, wracked with worry about a soft agenda and dim prospects for escaping the “do nothing” label, sat fuming. Democrats clearly loved it. The takeaway: Congress can’t — or won’t — do anything about its sorry state, even if the gridlock plays directly into the president’s political strategy,” Politico writes.
The New York Times’/CNBC’s John Harwood looks at how even as President Obama’s State of the Union embraced campaign-style populism, he can still claim the center on deficit reduction.
PolitiFact: Fact-checking the State of the Union.