I have no doubt that the main reason Democrats were pushing for the Kumbaya seating plan, in which members of both parties would mingle throughout the chamber, was to make the size of the Republican majority much less obvious on TV. That it did, but it looks like unintended consequences may have caught up with the Democrats.
According to reports I've read, and what little bit of the speech I saw, the level of applause and audience enthusiasm for this speech was much more tepid than past events. Some of that could be the fault of the speech and its presentation, but I suspect it has a lot to do with the mixed seating. Instead of each party being concentrated on one side of the chamber, the mixing effective dispersed much of the energy the Democrats might have shown for the president's proposals. Rather than feeding off each other when lumped together in a "critical mass", so to speak, having them spread around the chamber dissipated the energy.
I'll bet they don't try that again next year.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
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