10:15 a.m. E.T.
With his inaugural address behind him (David Brooks celebrated it and sort of liked it; Fred Barnes not so much; most of the MSM thought it was smashing), the President now moves to his State of the Union address, budget, and policy decisions.
Among the interesting choices he faces:
- How thoroughly does he embrace the House Republican efforts to delay the debt ceiling showdown for a few months?
- How much does he work with Senate Democrats on a gun control package (both in private and in public)?
- How successfully can he build a quasi-Bush-style business-Hispanic-Democratic-religious-labor coalition on the front end of launching a major immigration reform effort?
- Which Senate Republicans does he try to draw in to working with him on immigration, climate change, and budget cutting?
- At what moment (if ever) does he choose to show his cards on how much entitlement reform (and benefit cutting) he is willing to do, which will bother the left?
- Does he overload the system with climate change, immigration, guns, and budget all at once, or try to sequence them in 2013 so that one gets a fall push as the others pass or fail?
- Does the President’s new Organizing for Action outfit go after some congressional Democrats from the left any time soon?
I ask these questions without any idea what the answers are, as I wait for my sources to come down from their parade highs.
