How Was Bush's Speech Received by Viewers?
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush told the nation last night that the best way to improve the economy is to support job growth. How is that playing with middle America? Our Leon Harris is in St. Charles, Illinois, with some reaction from workers there. Leon, hi.</s>LEON HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Daryn, and hello, folks. Yeah, we are out here gauging reaction to President Bush's State of the Union address last night. We figured why not go to perhaps the most patriotic place we can find, that of course is no place other than J. C. Schultz Enterprises, where as you can see here they are hard at work making American flags. We understand they are, like, number five in the nation in terms of making flags. And Janice here is the president of the company. And we have been talking off and on this morning about this speech last night, and you as a person who is running a company right now, based upon what you heard last night, are you satisfied that there is a plan in place and that there is enough good will between Democrats and Republicans to make it happen?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think so. I think everybody realizes that we need two parties, because that's important in getting things solved the proper way, and they also know they have to work together. I think 9-11 showed us that we can work together, parties, Republicans, Democrats.</s>HARRIS: Did you hear enough about homeland security? A lot of your workers concerned about that.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we are all concerned about homeland security. And yes, there is enough. I feel there is a plan in place and everybody is -- even the security at the airports now, you can tell it's greater and it's good.</s>HARRIS: OK. Thanks, Janice. Let me hop over here, let me move out of your way, Jeff. Go back here, and Steve, we have been talking off and on about this morning about this speech, and you are perhaps the one person here that may have been the most critical about what you heard, because you wanted to hear more about jobs.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. Because jobs right now is the only thing that's going to help the economy grow. I feel that if we get the unemployed employed and get the homeless homes and, you know, help out like that. You know, the tax cuts, the tax relief that he gave us, the checks, helped out a lot for people who were unemployed at the time, but it just seems that I don't know if he was like not trying to get too far in depth until the time came right, or if he was just, you know, just showing everybody that he knows about the situation, he is aware of it. But I think we need a little more assurance than just knowing that he knows about the problem.</s>HARRIS: You think he actually cares about people like you more so than big business people? That's one of the criticisms that has been made in the past. UNIDENTIFIED MALE; I didn't see that last night. I didn't see that last night. It seems that he is still focused on helping the richer class get richer. I ain't saying that he's trying to keep the poor poor, but it doesn't seem like he's trying to help them as much as he's helping the rich right now.</s>HARRIS: Thanks, Steve. As you can see, Daryn, we have been getting a lot of different reactions to people here. And this company, as we said, has just been going gangbusters because of the flag sales. But as you can see here, they are not just making American flags, they're also making some other things here as well. I want to see if you'll recognize this one, Daryn. How about that?</s>KAGAN: Help me here. Grateful Dead.</s>HARRIS: You got it.</s>KAGAN: Did I?</s>HARRIS: She got it. We thought we'd stump the chump, but now you figured it out. They are busy at work here, they're making all kinds of products. And the economy is so far looking good for this company, and they are all saying that they think a rising tide is going to float all boats. Back to you, Daryn.</s>KAGAN: I guess that native Californian in me came through. I recognized a Dead head flag when I saw it. OK. Passed the test. Leon, you travel safely back here, and we look forward to having you back.</s>HARRIS: You got it.</s>KAGAN: All right, back to the president's State of the Union address. A survey finding that his address was very well received in American homes. A CNN-"USA Today"-Gallup Poll found nearly three- fourth of viewers saw the speech as very positive. Another 20 percent said it was somewhat positive. Only 5 percent responding negatively to the address. Our senior political analyst Bill Schneider joins us from Washington. Bill, good to see you.</s>BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to see you, Daryn.</s>KAGAN: Just what the president needed, even more positive numbers.</s>SCHNEIDER: That's right, and he did get them. I'd say he gave two State of the Union speeches last night, one of them was on the war on terrorism, the other was on the economy. Slightly different receptions. The war speech was an unqualified triumph, really. The speech on the economy was a qualified success, not quite as enthusiastic. When we did a poll, we asked speech watchers what they thought of his proposals to deal with each problem, and we found that a resounding 64 percent of those who watched the speech thought that the president's proposals to deal with terrorism would be very effective. A somewhat smaller number, 41 percent, felt the same way about the president's proposals to deal with the economy. So, as we just heard in Leon's report, there is still some doubts out there about his economic ideas, but certainly resounding support for his proposals on the war.</s>KAGAN: Bill, let's look at what the president and the Republicans are trying to do versus the Democrats. It seems like the president is trying to couple the enthusiasm for the war on terrorism, bring that over to the economy, whereas the Democrats would like to do the opposite and decouple that, and maybe get some of their economic and domestic issues through.</s>SCHNEIDER: Well, the Democrats are trying to pry the two issues apart. They are saying, we support the president solidly on the war on terrorism. There is difference between us whatsoever. But when it comes to the economy, we have different ideas. They don't like his stimulus package. They think it has too many tax cuts for the wealthy, and they have some of their own ideas. What the Republicans are trying to argue is that it's not two issues, it's one, and they are inextricably linked. The president linked them last night in his speech, when he said part of the war on terrorism is a war against this nation's recession. Because the president knows he has solid support in terrorism and he wants to have the same kind of support on the economy. And his argument, which he's made around the country, is they are linked. Most Americans believe that what drove up the deficit, what sustained and prolonged the recession is the war on terrorism, or the attacks back in September, and that if we can restore the country's confidence about its physical security, then people will begin to spend money, they'll invest, they'll travel again, and that will boost the economy.</s>KAGAN: Bill, I just want to drop this one on you. You have been talking all day about what was in the president's address. I picked up on some things that were not specifically, and I want to see if any of these jumped out at you. First of all, you didn't hear Osama bin Laden's name directly. You didn't hear Enron's name directly. The detainees at Camp X-Ray, those weren't spoken of either, and also the increasing violence and tension in the Middle East.</s>SCHNEIDER: That's right. The absence of any discussion of the Middle East was striking, because a lot of people think that this situation in the larger Middle East, including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, cannot be resolved until the United States plays a stronger role in settling the Israeli-Palestinian controversy. The president didn't say one word about that, which a lot of people think was a serious lapse. Enron he mentioned only obliquely, when he called for greater corporate responsibility, without mentioning Enron by name. So there was a little bit about that. Osama bin Laden, that was an interesting omission. I don't think -- I think it was deliberate, because this war has been very strongly personalized. We still find that most Americans do not believe it's going to be over until we eliminate Osama bin Laden, we capture him or even kill him. Well, the president doesn't want the -- his success or failure in this war to hinge on our ability to do that. So he did not personalize it by mentioning Osama's name.</s>KAGAN: Bill Schneider in Washington. As always, a pleasure, sir. Thank you for being with us. Appreciate it.</s>SCHNEIDER: Pleasure. OK. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com