Jonathan Alter: Obama needs to innovate

Next week, President Barack Obama will deliver his annual State of the Union address. We can expect to hear him lay out his roadmap for the next two years. Leading up to his address, we’re talking with some key political observers about the direction in which the president should and must move in his remaining time in office.

We’re joined by Jonathan Alter, senior editor at Newsweek and author of “The Promise: President Obama, Year One. In a recent story for Newsweek, Alter wrote, ?President Obama’s task in 2011 is to frame our choice?innovate or stagnate?then offer instructional tips on inventing the future.?

Like we’ve asked our listeners, we ask Alter to fill in these blanks: “2011 will be a decisively positive year for Obama if we begin to see [BLANK], and negative if we see more of [BLANK]”