I have a post at the Wall Street Journal’s “Ideas Market blog”:http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market that outlines a little research on SOTU addresses and their effects. Here’s one tidbit:
bq. Wilson began a trend in appealing directly to or identify with the American people–one evident in the increasing use of the words “we” and “our.” These pronouns were about four times as common in the 1990s as in the 1890s.
Find the whole post “here”:http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/01/25/the-state-of-the-union/.