Excerpt from CNBC:

The mark of great presidents is optimism — visionary optimism and transformational optimism. During Tuesday night’s remarkable speech before Congress, President Donald Trump was brimming with optimism, from start to end. My guess is that his marvelous speech will imbue and inspire new optimism and confidence throughout the entire country.

Stock markets surged over 300 points the day after the speech, and I’ll bet the president’s approval ratings jump over 20 points.

There are so many Trump cynics and critics who watched this event and hoped for a train-wreck, shock-value disaster. Whoops. It didn’t happen. They completely misjudged Mr. Trump.

He wasn’t angry. He didn’t lash out. His voice was calm and modulated. And he was incredibly effective.

In fact, he was riveting. You couldn’t take your eyes off him. You couldn’t even take a bathroom break. You didn’t want to miss a word.

President’s Trump’s speech was infused with civility, which is something we all hoped for as an alternative to the coarseness of American politics (and the rest of the culture, for that matter).

He made fact-based arguments on the economy, health care, education, immigration, national security, and public safety. And he did so respectfully. He attempted to persuade, and it was wonderful to watch.

And time and again, he reached across the aisle to the Democrats. This was a unity speech, not a partisan one. The president asked for common ground and common good. He was saying: Let’s work together to solve all these problems that have troubled us for so many years.

I have no idea how the Democrats will respond. But poll after poll has shown that the country yearns for bipartisanship rather than the flame-throwing, name-calling political contentiousness that has governed Washington and the campaign trail for so long.

All the Trump campaign themes were there. He intends to keep his promises. I thought he was especially convincing on merit-based immigration. And he set out the principles of health-care reform, education choice, and law and order everywhere — especially in the big inner cities where poverty has ruled alongside violence in a downward spiral that seems impossible to fix.

Read more at CNBC.

Photo Credit: Michael Vadon