John McCain and Barack Obama are offering profoundly different prescriptions, though economic and political realities will limit their ambitions

SIXTEEN years ago an American presidential election was fought against the backdrop of a weak economy and a grumpy electorate. In 1992, in the shadow of a recession and with Americans worried about their living standards, their health care and their country's ability to compete, a charismatic young Democrat won by focusing on middle-class America's economic angst and excoriating the "failed" policies of the Reagan and Bush eras. Candidate Bill Clinton promised an activist government that would tilt the scales towards workers, pledging wholesale health-care reform, big increases in public investment, tax cuts for middle-class families and higher taxes on the rich.

But the reality of Clintonomics was more centrist and less ambitious than promised. Taxes did go up for the rich, but large public investment plans were quickly ditched in favour of deficit reduction. His (or rather, his wife's) health-care scheme famously collapsed. In 1996, facing a Republican Congress, he declared that "The era of big government is over." And by the middle of the decade, Americans' malaise was morphing into triumphalism as productivity accelerated, unemployment fell and wages rose across the board. ...