Obama spoke of the importance of reinventing oneself after facing hardship, comments that mirrored his own situation in the aftermath of the failed climate bill. He told a story about Robert and Gary Allen, brothers who, after their roofing business fell on hard times, used a government loan to begin manufacturing solar shingles.

“That’s what Americans have done for over 200 years: reinvented ourselves,” he said.

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Obama also called on Congress to pass a clean-energy standard mandating that 80 percent of the country’s electricity be generated from low-carbon sources by 2035. And he set a goal of putting 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

The speech laid the groundwork for what Obama would later refer to as his “all-of-the-above energy” strategy.

“Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all — and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen,” he said.

Jan. 24, 2012: Looking ahead

Mentions of “climate”: 1

Mentions of “energy”: 23

Last year’s State of the Union address had a heavy focus on energy but scant mention of climate change.

The speech mirrored the tone of his second presidential campaign, in which Obama spoke in broad strokes about the importance of investing in clean energy and expanding domestic oil and gas development.

The strategy was aimed at casting the widest possible net. It was an effort to provide something for everybody, from oil workers on the Gulf to wind energy workers in the Midwest.

“This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy. A strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper and full of new jobs,” Obama said in a line that was repeated in future campaign speeches.

Obama spent much of the speech touting his fossil fuel bona fides, an effort to counter longtime GOP criticism that the president is anti-oil and gas.

“He was getting hammered,” Slocum said. “He was sensitive to those attacks, and I think he was sensitive to the charges that he was hostile to American energy and oil and gas.”

In his speech, Obama said that “over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.” That came alongside other statistics about oil production being at record highs.

He also seized on the natural gas boom, stressing that “my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy,” he said.

The focus on oil and gas frustrated much of Obama’s liberal base.

“I don’t think it’s fair to criticize the president for not being able to put together a sweeping climate change plan, but the thing where it’s legitimate to criticize him is the contradictory position on an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy, particularly his focus on oil and gas,” Slocum said.

Obama was still pushing his clean energy agenda, however. He used the speech to promote the Pentagon’s green-energy programs, which have drawn attacks from many Republicans in Congress, and announced that the administration would “allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes.”

“The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change,” Obama said while lamenting that Congress also hadn’t followed his previous call for a clean-energy standard. “So far, you haven’t acted. Well, tonight, I will.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 7:27 p.m. on February 8, 2013.