U.S. President Barack Obama delivers the State of the Union speech before members of Congress in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol, January 12, 2016 in Washington, DC.Mark Wilson
President Barack Obama headed for Nebraska on Wednesday seeking to stir up citizen support for his controversial call for tougher gun control as he launches his last year in office.
On Thursday, the President will be touting Obamacare in Louisiana as he seeks to spread the optimism he voiced in his last State of the Union speech, when he delivered a glowing view of his own presidency and America's future.
Occasionally regretful but mostly upbeat, the President maintained that he had delivered on the change he had promised and that hope for the United States' future was brighter than ever.
But he also took a swipe at Donald Trump, the bombastic billionaire Republican seeking to replace him in the Oval Office.
"When politicians insult Muslims … that doesn't make us safer," Mr. Obama said in an unmistakable reference to the property magnate who wants them banned from entering the United States. "It's just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals."
In his Tuesday-evening speech, the President also dismissed as overly worried those who regard Islamist extremism in the form of violent jihad.
"Over-the-top claims that this is World War Three just plays into their hands," Mr. Obama said. "They do not threaten our national existence. … We don't need to build them up. … We just need to call them what they are: killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down and destroyed."
He reeled off a string of legacy-defining achievements, without quite claiming personal credit. On his watch, he said, unemployment has been halved, the federal deficit massively reduced, health care extended to 18 million previously uncovered Americans and the number of U.S. troops in combat zones reduced to fewer than 20,000 from nearly 200,000.
"The talk of America's economic decline is political hot air," Mr. Obama declared, sounding sometimes more like a president seeking another term rather than one closing out his second. "So is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It's not even close," he said, almost shouting.
There was only one significant objective announced – Mr. Obama called it a "moon shot," akin to the 1960s Cold War space race won by the United States after Russia's early lead. "Let's make America the country that cures cancer once and for all," he said. "I'm announcing a new national effort to get it done" and putting Vice-President Joe Biden in charge, he said.
For Mr. Obama, his last State of the Union was another moment to dazzle the nation, a soaring address full of stirring calls for Americans to do more, to be better, to come together.
Across the political divide, it was regarded as more of the same. "The President's record has often fallen far short of his soaring words," said Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina, a rising star in the Republican Party, who made the traditional rebuttal immediately after Mr. Obama was finished his hour-long speech.
The daughter of Sikh immigrants from India also warned Republicans against the temptation to "turn against each other's race or religion."
But most of the Republican reaction to the President's speech was far harsher.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, one of the leading Republicans seeking the presidency, said Mr. Obama's call for bipartisan co-operation was far too late.
The President "has gone around for seven years telling people that Republicans don't care about those that are less fortunate," Mr. Rubio said, adding: "Now he comes out with language of reconciliation. … It's too late, because he has bitterly divided this country and he has done so for political gain."
His opponents say Mr. Obama talks a good line about bipartisanship, but his record is far different. His sweeping health-care system was the first-ever entitlement program rammed through Congress without a single vote from the other party. And the President's ready resort to governing by executive order – attempting to give quasi-legal status to more than five million people unlawfully in the United States – undermines the democracy he espouses, they say.
The President admitted that a bitter political divide still paralyzes Washington, and that "the rancour and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better" on his watch. He called it "one of the few regrets of my presidency," but he didn't assume any blame.