Lady Luck is on Obama's side

I watched President Obama’s State of the Union speech twice. Once with the sound on, and once with it off. It was interesting to read the faces and body language of his supporters and opponents.

Nancy Pelosi looked like a Shakespearian mother: “Reclaim your kingdom, my son, from those who plot your downfall!”

Joe Biden came off as a gung-ho high school football coach: “You go out there and show ’em what you’re made of, Barack. If you want change, you gotta show ’em who’s the boss of change.”

Every time the cameras panned to the congressmen, the Republicans were posed like stone cold statues. Their faces said: “We are here to destroy your presidency, Barack Obama, and we will succeed in our mission by repeating the words, “No! No! No!” over and over again until the day you leave office.”

Then there were the smirky senators, like John McCain, who was constantly side-whispering to a colleague sitting next to him. Oh, yeah, Senator, like you could’ve done a better job, right? Aren’t you the same guy who almost put Sarah Palin one heart attack away from the presidency? I think that says all we need to know about your luck with big gambles—you have none. We need a president who has Lady Luck on his side—and that’s Obama. Just look at his story. What are the chances of a just-elected U.S. Senator becoming the president of the United States? Who’s African American? Who beat the fearsome Clinton political machine and then came up from behind to beat the even scarier Republicans?

There’s no denying it, Lady Luck loves Obama. We can’t control luck—not with good deeds, not even with prayers. When Lady Luck calls, you better get out of the way if she’s not calling you, because she’ll roll right over you like a bulldozer. It’s not that she didn’t like McCain or Hillary. She just fell for Obama.

And I think luck is going to have some surprising twists of fate in store for the Republicans in the near future. For instance, Republicans are fully expecting to pick up a lot of congressional seats in the mid-term election in November. You keep hearing it over and again: The Democrats will lose their majorities in both the House and Senate—just like they did under Bill Clinton in ’94. The Republicans are already rewriting the tax codes for the rich.

That’s where Lady Luck comes in. She’s the wild card—the wild, crazy card. For all we know, the economy may pick up dramatically right before the mid-term election and, in a stunning twist of fate, re-establish the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and maintain their sizeable majority in the House. The stone faces will crumble and Obama’s programs will go through. Totally unrealistic? Nobody knows what LL has up her sleeve.

Obama was right: Change is never easy; reform is messy, complicated and tough as hell to bring about. But along the way, Lady Luck always has her say. And where Obama’s concerned, it’s usually: “I’m on you’re side, Sweetie.”