'The View' gets political -- viewers love it

It was the morning after President Obama's first State of the Union, which typically wouldn't mean much for daytime television shows and their menu of celebrity interviews, cooking tips and fashion segments. But the hosts of the ABC gabfest "The View" had a different agenda: dissecting the president's highly anticipated address. There was a time when talking politics on daytime TV would have been verboten -- too polarizing for the lifestyle shows aimed at stay-at-home moms and other female viewers. But after the vivid partisan wrangling on "The View" during the 2008 presidential race became water-cooler fodder, producers realized they had hit a rich vein. Since then, the show has unflinchingly tackled political issues and, in the process, upended traditional ideas about what women want to watch.