OUR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT:

[T]he Obama and Clinton presidencies complement, complete, and reinforce each other. To oversimplify, Clinton provided the policy and ideological original thinking; Obama's the one who got the policies over the goal line.

Obama has not often been a policy innovator. Most of his big proposals were designed in the Clinton administration or by Clintonites. Obamacare was close to what Hillary proposed in 2008 and to the right of what the Clintons proposed in the 1990s. His first big environmental push was a centrist, market-oriented cap-and-trade regime. His stimulus package was almost one-third tax cuts. For all the attention to Obama's slight weakening of the welfare law, the more striking thing is that he has pretty much left welfare reform--the most conservative thing Clinton did--intact. Many of Obama's key aides--Rahm Emanuel, Jack Lew, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, John Podesta, Larry Summers, Susan Rice, Gene Sperling, Bruce Reed--served in the Clinton administration. That's not including his first secretary of state. It's a testament to how much Clinton changed the Democratic Party that even a conventional progressive like Obama ended up being "New Democrat" on most issues.

Conversely, Obama completed and expanded on the Clinton presidency in key ways. The most obvious is passing health care when Clinton couldn't. That's a big what-Joe-Biden-said. There's more: Clinton started a modest-sized "direct lending" program that allowed college students to borrow straight from the government, bypassing banks; Obama got the banks out entirely, saving taxpayers billions in the process. Clinton proposed raising fuel efficiency standards for cars from 27.5 mpg to 40. He failed. Obama has successfully raised them, with a target of 55 mpg by 2015. 

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