To many young voters, President Obama's populist pitch is perfect

Republicans knew this day would come.

The day when all of their remarks about teleprompters and boasts about how they "can't wait" to debate President Obama are laughably empty statements.

As he took the podium in the Congressional chambers this evening to deliver his 4th State of the Union address, President Barack Obama immediately returned to his 2008 campaign form. His speech relied heavily on his oft-preached ideal that his presidency is truly one of cooperation and teamwork, and that the United States is ready to transcend divisive partisan politics.

For our purposes here at SCOOP2012, Obama importantly addressed issues essential to young people that have remained more or less ignored by the GOP hopefuls.

1. Higher education

The subject of sky-high education costs in this country has rarely, if ever, come up during the GOP campaign for the nomination. In fact, I tweeted about 40 minutes into President Obama's speech that he had spent more time discussing education at that point than the Republicans had in nearly 20 debates.

"Higher education cannot be a luxury, it is an economic imperative" said Obama, whose rhetoric on higher ed struck a cord with the dozen or so young voters with whom I watched the debate.

Education is the SINGLE most important issue to young voters. And its quality, access and affordability are centrally tied to the economy. Right now, high school education in the U.S. is inefficient, and higher education in the U.S. is unaffordable. Unless the eventual GOP candidate articulates a specific plan to overhaul education, don't expect Obama to lose many of the eager young supporters he had in 2008 over this issue.

2. Health care

In this case, less was more. Obama said few sentences about health care, but his brevity set the tone that he will not allow "Obamacare" to be a campaign issue come 2012. Despite repeated calls for its repeal, Obama is wise to refuse to debate pieces of legislation that have already been past.

And while it's a focal point of the primary race, national health care may not be a major factor in the general election come November. As Phillip Klein writes in the Washington Examiner:

Interestingly, in his Republican response, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels didn't take the opportunity to go after Obamacare. This raises the question of whether both parties see health care as not a major issue during the 2012 election. Of course, this could all change depending on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules late this spring/early in the summer.

3. Post-partisan Washington D.C.

While most remember "Hope" and "Change" as the the go-to lines of the 2008 Obama campaign, one line that immediately reminded me of his first campaign's rally was "We must recognize that Washington is broken."

Obama hasn't been successful in ridding Washington of its silly and destructive partisan politics. But, at the end of the day, his tone of idealistic optimism is much more attractive than the negative fear-mongering being advanced by many in the GOP.

Although there is still work to be done (a piece in The New Yorker earlier this week did an excellent job of showing Obama's failed attempts at non-partisanship during his first term), most swing and youth voters are willing to believe that Obama has actually tried to change the culture in Washington D.C.

And the GOP must realize that painting Obama as a deliberately polarizing president is a losing strategy — that is, if they'd like to take the White House next year.

With that said, and after seeing our first glimpse of the Obama 2012 campaign strategy, Alexander: what do you think the GOP must do to convince young voters that Obama is all talk?