Obama's push to tackle income inequality provides any Democratic nominee with a central organizing theme and policy purpose. It also challenges any Republican nominee to either reject government action in that direction, alienating the strong majority of Americans who favor it--or embrace such government action, alienating the Republican base.

My view may not have been so different from that of Maureen Dowd, who once wrote that President Obama had to look deep into his soul to determine who he was. In her view, he emerged with the realization that he was Barry, president of the Harvard Law Review.

But three generations of relative prosperity have served to more than double that rate of inadequacy. The condition of so many of our young people offers a grim indictment of our public schools, a rebuke to parents, and a warning about the future of national security