During last night’s State of the Union address, the President of the United States delivered a speech bookended by the military, invoking the end of combat in Iraq at the start and the killing of Osama Bin Laden at the end. But the center of the speech was a long laundry-list of proposals to revamp trade, energy policy, education, and home loans.

(Below, a shot of the White House’s enhanced web feed, which included charts, and humor.)

In the GOP response, Indiana Governnor Mitch Daniels called Obama’s approach “pro-poverty” and “a grand approach in trickle-down government” that held back the recovery. “Trickle-down government” was an odd phrase to use, since in some ways it implies Daniels and the GOP would want more government — a flood rather than a trickle. But the Republican Party has called for cuts, and the President’s list of new programs is likely to face steep resistance.

One of the tag lines of the speech was “no bailouts, no handouts, no cop-outs.” But was it a cop-out for the President to push a slew of new programs rather than an overarching big-think approach to ramping up the economy?

Election 2012 will be fought largely for two cohorts: swing voters and people who would not vote for the opposite party, but may not vote for their own. In the 2008 election, for example, some GOP voters sat out the election because they did not feel passionate about the McCain-Palin ticket. In that election, there was also a rise in first-time voters, particularly for then-Senator Barack Obama. This time around, with unemployment rates punishing for young Americans and African-Americans in particular, the cadre of Democratic voters could shrink compared to four years ago.