The most memorable line in President Barack Obama’s January State of the Union address wasn’t part of his prepared remarks. It was a quick-on-his-feet wisecrack at the expense of congressional Republicans. When he said, as an entreaty to cooperate in a less politicized environment, "I have no more campaigns to run," a Republican contingent laughed and applauded. But rather than let them sneak one past him, Obama returned serve: “I know, ‘cause I won both of ‘em.”

The quip became a metonym for the full address, which was among the most combative of Obama’s presidency. But as an expression of defiance, it had precious little to do with the combative idea around which he constructed the speech itself.

At every step, we were told our goals were misguided or too ambitious; that we would crush jobs and explode deficits. Instead, we’ve seen the fastest economic growth in over a decade, our deficits cut by two-thirds, a stock market that has doubled, and health care inflation at its lowest rate in fifty years. So the verdict is clear. Middle-class economics works.

As a theme, this riff should have struck a chord with the conservative movement’s myriad Reaganologists. In his farewell address to the country in 1989, the 40th president scolded critics in a similar fashion.

Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe.... Our plans for the economy would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I even remember one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that "the engines of economic growth have shut down here, and they're likely to stay that way for years to come.’’ Well, he and the other opinion leaders were wrong. The fact is, what they called "radical" was really "right." What they called "dangerous'' was just "desperately needed."

This similarity is no coincidence. Since he won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, and maybe before, Obama has seen in his presidency the potential for shifting the national paradigm, much the way Reagan did in the 1980s, but in a different direction. For the first six years of his presidency, though, slow economic growth and broad disenchantment with partisan politics left that goal out of reach. Until recently, it was taken as an article of faith in the commentariat that the next Democratic presidential nominee would have to distinguish herself from Obama, and promise to govern in a meaningfully different way.

The economy’s rapid growth in recent quarters has scrambled these assumptions, and now the White House is pitching the Reagan comparison to political reporters in Washington.