LIVE STREAM VIDEO: GOP Response to Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union

Impact

Mitch Daniels will seek  to provide the conservative foil to Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union speech on Tuesday.

A rising star in the Republican Party, Daniels was selected by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to give his take. 

The Republican governor from Indiana decided last year against launching a 2012 presidential campaign. 

Daniels will broadly blame Obama for the failing economy. Daniels will also seek to attack Obama's plan to support the middle class, while attacking the upper class. This theme of "division" will be central for the Indiana governor.

"No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant effort to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others," Daniels said, according to excerpts of his remarks released before he and Obama actually spoke. "As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat."

 

Attacking Obama's own theme of rich v. poor, Daniels said, "As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume climbing up life's ladder. We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon-to-haves."

 

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