CNN's GUT CHECK | for  January 29, 2014 | 5 p.m.
– n. a pause to assess the state, progress or condition of the political news cycle

LIBERALS CLAIM MOMENTUM FROM OBAMA ADDRESS ... Two big themes coming out of Tuesday's address are economic populism and a "new willingness to fight" entrenched conservative interests, said Adam Green of the Washington-based Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Obama is sounding "more and more" like freshman Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a rising star on the left, Green told reporters on a conference call. And that is a "good thing for America" and "great for Democrats." – Alan Silverleib

AND IN RELATED NEWS …. THE RADIOACTIVE PRESIDENT: SEN. MARK BEGICH, D-ALASKA, IN AN INTERVIEW WITH CNN’S JAKE TAPPER & DANA BASH: "I'm not really interested in campaigning" with Obama if the President came to Alaska. "If he wants to come up there and learn about Alaska, bring it on. I'll drag him around, I'll show him what he ever he wants to see, but I want to show him and convince him some of his policies are not the right direction. I don't need him campaigning for me. I need him to change some of his policies."

SEN. MARK UDALL, D-COLORADO, IN AN INTERVIEW WITH CNN’S DANA BASH TUESDAY: "We'll see what the President's schedule is, what my schedule is. But Coloradans are going to re-elect me based on my record, not the President's record … Let's see what the schedule allows. I'm running for re-election, not the President."

LIMBAUGH: OBAMA SHOULD HAVE GIVEN THAT SPEECH FIVE YEARS AGO … “This was a campaign speech without an election. It was pure denial. The president last night was pretending to run for office in the hopes of winning an election, so at some point in the future he can govern. The whole night I kept saying, ‘Wait a minute. We're five years into this. This speech is a speech that should have been given five years ago.’"

THE STATE OF THE JELLY: CNN Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper asked people on the social media app Jelly to weigh in on President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. Jelly is a new app from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone that lets users ask questions using pictures. Replies can be drawn right on top of the image (think Perez Hilton). First, Tapper reached out before the big speech to find out what issues people wanted Obama to touch on. Many Jelly users asked for topics that did indeed make Obama's address but others weren’t mentioned at all. (Click to see pics.)

THE BUZZ: EL PAPA IS A ROLLING STONE
Pope Francis makes the cover of the Rolling Stone: “It's a funny thing, papal celebrity. As the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio had never been an especially gifted public speaker. But now that he's Pope Francis, his recognizable humanity comes off as positively revolutionary. Against the absurd, impossibly baroque backdrop of the Vatican, a world still run like a medieval court, Francis' election represents what his friend Elisabetta Piqué, an Argentine journalist who has known him for a decade, calls ‘a scandal of normality.’" – Mark Binelli

MARKET WATCH: U.S. stocks skid on emerging market fears and Fed stimulus reduction. Dow sheds 183 points. NASDAQ, S&P lose 1%.

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