The lesson from the State of the Union address is this: Barack Obama has no second term agenda. Oh, sure, he campaigned furiously for the job, starting in about January of 2011. But his campaign almost never outlined his plans for a second term, focusing instead on interest group payoffs and demonization of his rival. Late in October of 2012, as if recognizing that they’d forgotten to attend to it, the Obama campaign released a 20-page glossy handout called a “blueprint for America’s future.” It featured splashy photos of the president on nearly every page, along with generic promises like “improve education for middle-class jobs.”

The president is like the dog that chased a car and caught it. What does he do now? Faced with the necessity of presenting a program in the State of the Union, Obama couldn’t rely on his “blueprint,” because it was essentially cotton candy. So it appears that he rummaged around in the closet where they keep hoary liberal wish lists. He dusted a few off, renamed them things like “Fix It First,” “Smarter Government,” “Manufacturing Hubs” and so forth and rolled them out like parade floats.