Obama Channels Eisenhower

President Obama's State of the Union speech made every attempt to stress the importance of education and innovation as a means of "winning the future," which is a message not unlike former President Dwight D. Eisenhower's State of the Union in 1958. 

The US was caught by surprise with launch of Sputnik in 1957 -- an event that began the space race and put a emphasis on the technological capacities of the two great superpowers. Calling this challenge "a different kind of war," then-president Eisenhower took it upon himself to boost America's future potential in the fields of science and math so as to empower the nation to compete internationally. In his 1958 State of the Union he emphasized the need for more than just military power alone:

We must never become so preoccupied with our desire for military strength that we neglect those areas of economic development, trade, diplomacy, education, ideas and principles where the foundations of real peace must be laid.

The challenge, as Eisenhower put it was, "not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow," a theme not unlike Obama's concept of "winning the future".