Early in his address, Obama said that he wanted the nation he leads to be a "light to the world." The last president who set such a mission for the nation he led, and in those exact words, was Woodrow Wilson.

Obama's concept of the "American family" may well have had its origins in the first State of the State address New York Governor Mario Cuomo delivered in 1983. Cuomo proclaimed the state of New York as a "family." He also talked about multiple partnerships, both public and private.

In a 1991 Washington, D.C. address sponsored by conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation, Margaret Thatcher coined a phrase Obama made his own in his second State of the Union address. Thatcher told her American audience that "no other nation has been built upon an idea." In a slightly revised form, Obama, in his second State of the Union address, all but repeated it, using additional words.

Obama's pointed mutterings about a second "Sputnik Moment" being upon us and his recollection of how American policymakers responded to the last one with increased expenditures on infrastructure, science, technology, and education were clearly intended to evoke the spirit of Dwight D. Eisenhower. His setting of specific deadlines and goals was vintage JFK, but for the absence of any sense of challenge to his audience, list of benefits the United States would derive from them, or any semblance of a shared adventure the American people were about to embark upon. [Read Robert Schlesinger: Obama Not the First to Use 'Sputnik Moment.']