Did you watch the state of the union speech by President Obama last night? I didn’t but not because I was watching something else, I just chose to spend the hour with my family instead. I did some research and read about it today from a couple of news sources and even though I am a little reluctant to feature politics in my blog but I have some thoughts.

First, I received a very interesting e-mail from the White House yesterday – take a look at a screen shot of the e-mail here. I have to admit that I have written to the President before. I’m one of “those people” who takes democracy pretty seriously and I’ve been inspired to contact government officials at every level to share my perspective. Have I heard back? Not always, but the closer the branch of government is, the more likely they are to get in touch with you. I think it makes a difference. So, when I saw that a “3M” – not the company, but a “Minnesota Middle-class Mom” was going to be in the First Lady’s box last night, I thought it was great. The President read her letter and came to Minneapolis to buy her lunch and invited her to Washington D.C. so he could use her story. It’s all good theater right? I just wish he’d done a better job staying engaged with “us” all along. He and his campaign team did a great job of getting people energized and involved during his first campaign but to tell you the truth, this is the first e-mail I’ve ever received from him. I think he’s missed a huge opportunity.

I also wanted to share Matt Bai’s article from Yahoo. You can read his entire piece from today here: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-declares-victory–way-too-late-043549344.html. There is one quote from Matt that deserves to be repeated in my mind.

“He’s gone on talking mostly about economic suffering and inequality, at a time when the broad base of the country might well have responded to a more hopeful message — especially from the guy who used “hope” as his campaign slogan…He missed the chance to say, “Guess what? Things are actually getting a lot better now. You’re welcome. But we still face a serious crisis for your kids not too far down the line, and that’s what I want to focus on next.”

So, whatever you think about this President, I think his time in office will be judged by huge swings of emotion – excitement of his election and what it meant to the country to the economic and foreign policy crises that had his approval rating at all time lows. It’s a tough job however you look at it but I think he could have been more connected to us – I think it would have made a difference for how I feel about the state of the union.