Legislators from Barack Obama’s Democratic Party as well as several opposition Republicans responded positively to the new president’s first address to Congress late on Tuesday.
Republican Senator John McCain, Obama’s rival in the 2008 election, described the president’s speech as “excellent”.
“I think he carefully balanced the enormity and the size of the challenges and the difficulties that America faces,” McCain told CNN.
“At the same time, he gave Americans assurance and confidence that we could get through this,” McCain said.
The Arizona senator, however, was not particularly happy when the president spoke about US military budget cuts.
“I don’t think we’re going to save money because we’re going to have to spend a lot more on Afghanistan. We should tell the American people that it’s a long, hard struggle in Afghanistan,” he said.
McCain also warned that the tens of thousands of US forces likely to stay in Iraq after the bulk of the combat troops are pulled out — reportedly by August 2010 — “will be in harm’s way as well”.
Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat from Missouri, said that Obama’s speech had “exactly the right tone”.
“I think he did a good job of explaining the need for the steps we’ve taken so far,” she told reporters.
Republican Senator Lamar Alexander from Tennessee especially liked Obama’s focus on education. “It was a call for change in education that I think is welcome — now we’ll see how he follows through,” he said.
Ben Nelson, Democratic senator from Nebraska, gushed over Obama’s performance. “I think he touched to all issues that were important, whether it was education, economic development, or the economic situation,” Nelson told reporters.
Nelson was also happy to see Obama focus on education. “I think he understands as we all do how important the education is for the future,” he said.
Congressman Michael Pence from Indiana welcomed “the president’s new-found optimism about the American economy”.
However “as a House Republican I think raising taxes in a time of recession is precisely the wrong thing to do for this economy”, he told reporters.
No House Republicans voted for Obama’s recently passed economic stimulus package. Only three Republican senators approved the measure.
Representative Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, also thought it was a very good speech.
“One of the problems that President Obama has is that he’s such a gifted orator that every time he speaks people expect they will actually swoon,” he said. — AFP