The state of the union is good. That is what our president told us last Wednesday in his address to the joint session of the House, Senate and rest of the world.

His speech/talk/sermon touched on the past year, good and bad. He also laid out, for those who on Jan. 20, 2009 discovered our country had slipped in an economic hole and have been tea partying and lambasting the government ever since, that this economic funk we are in did not occur on the 21st of January, 2009, but could be better traced to Jan. 20, 2001 and the eight years that followed.

For me, the address laid out the campaign for 2010, the issues that will be part and parcel of it. In doing this, President Obama chose the ground on which his party will meet the opposition and in the tradition of our “democracy” fight for control of the government.

Being able to choose the ground in a military sense is always the precursor of victory. Robert E. Lee, the masterful general of the rebel states in the Civil War, excelled at the art of choosing the ground on which he fought. The main reason for this was that the rebel states were almost always on the defensive, and having an idea of where your attacker is going to be at is a clear advantage. The two times Lee went on the offensive, at Antietam and Gettysburg, resulted in bloody losses for the South.

President Obama occupies the high ground, and from that position can see where the attacks have and will come from. He has outlined the issues — job creation, small business growth, ending subsidies for corporations who outsource jobs, financial regulatory reform, election regulation reform, student loan debt reform and healthcare reform — that, with his direct involvement, can become the defensive line from which he and his army of supporters can blunt and turn away the attacks of the reactionary right.

That is why he has framed the issues in the simplest of terms. These issues all impact people at the local level. He is giving those who turned out to elect he and other candidates advocating change to office another reason to turn out in 2010 and continue the progress. The question in 2010 will be, “Do we want to continue to move forward or do we want to go ‘back to the future?'”

Last week, for the first time in my memory, a president used the State of the Union to criticize those who are acting contrary to the interests of the people, calling out the Supreme Court for the repeal of money limits on corporate political involvement and calling on Senate Republicans to stop sitting on their hands.

In these comments he was also sending a message to the Democrats that it is time to draw the line in the sand if the opposition does not decide to work for what he considers the common good. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2010, for it promises to be another contentious year in which most of our futures are on the table.

In 2010, will you be playing the role of bystander or activist? The future lies in your hands.

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