As I wrote last night, Obama came into this speech needing to show he could explain and empathize at the same time.

Bill Clinton, masterful as ever, offered him a template for how to do so. And fortunately, Obama more than took it.

Just look at this:

For over two decades, he’s subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy — give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is — you’re on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps — even if you don’t have boots. You’re on your own.

Well it’s time for them to own their failure. It’s time for us to change America.

What Obama is really referring to is the philosophical school of Milton Friedman, also known as the Chicago School of Economics.

In its various iterations there is no shortage of intellectual complexity, yet here Obama reduces it to something anyone can understand—and even more, he communicates that he personally can understand why someone would find that school of thought so discomfiting.

Quotes like that are political rhetoric at its demagogic best; they’re what made Bill Clinton president in 1992 and 1996, and what made Kennedy a legend in 1960.

Now that Obama has fully mastered them, they should make him both.