On Washington - Clinton Turned Right in ’96 Speech, While Obama Plowed Ahead - NYTimes.com

On Washington

Where Clinton Turned Right, Obama Plowed Ahead

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama walked to the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon.

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By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: January 28, 2010

WASHINGTON — When President Bill Clinton faced a Republican uprising and a nation that turned deeply skeptical about his agenda, he used the 1996 State of the Union address to declare that “the era of big government is over.”

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That move to the middle — arguably more rhetoric than reality — stopped Newt Gingrich’s Republican Revolution in its tracks. So why did President Barack Obama go a different route on Wednesday night, giving little