Local Dems Hopeful Over Obama's Message

A startlingly realistic cardboard cutout of President Barack Obama greeted local Democrats Tuesday evening as they walked up the steps into Timi Burke's Grant Street home.

Inside, in front of campaign literature and a photo of Burke smiling and shaking hands with a laughing Obama, they mingled before watching the president deliver his 2012 State of the Union address.

"It's the last State of the Union before the election. He's got to make a big impact," said Malcolm Gordon, a Sherman Oaks resident.

The gathering at Burke's Santa Monica home was one of 2,700 local "watch parties" across the country. Asi Kaufman drove into the Westside from his Studio City home, because the watch party there was at capacity.

Obama used Tuesday's State of the Union address—which comes in the midst of a rapidly escalating presidential campaign season—to lay out a vision of America in which everybody gets a fair shot at economic success. He said that would require everybody, including "the wealthy," to play by the same rules as the average citizen.

During his remarks, Obama reiterated his support for instituting the "Buffett rule," a concept that he and congressional Democrats have been pushing for months as a way to pay for their legislative priorities. Named after billionaire Warren Buffett, the rule would require people making more than $1 million to pay a minimum effective rate of at least 30 percent.

What Obama said about economic equality is partially what Gordon had hoped to hear. He’s in favor of getting rid of flat taxes and "loopholes," such as those that allow Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to pay a 13.9 percent tax rate, below that of most wage-earning Americans.

It was friendly territory for most of the local Democrats. They varied in age and were an assortment of liberals and moderates, but most were still excited about Obama three years into his first term.

But for Santa Monica resident Brian Kuhn, it was an opportunity to compare his own political ideology to the others'.

"I'm reluctant to come to these types of events," he said, because he's disappointed in Obama. He said he was looking forward to the opportunity to compare what Obama touted in his speech as successes to what Kuhn has perceived as failures.

Ahead of the address, senior administration officials who spoke only on background and wouldn't be quoted, said the underlying message of the speech is that Obama's economic policies have been working and should be continued.

The country had already lost 4 million jobs to the recession before Obama came into office and lost another 4 million before his policies took effect, they said. By contrast, Obama's policies have created more than 3 million private-sector jobs in the past two years.

In 2008, Kuhn went door to door in Nevada campaigning for the president. The outcome was a letdown, he said.

"He tried to compromise with people who wanted to cut his head off," Kuhn said, and thus wasn’t able to deliver on all of the overreaching promises he made. "Where are all of the green jobs?" Kuhn asked.

— The Huffington Post contributed to this report.