Barack Obama's 2009 Inaugural Address: Obama's 2013 Inaugural Address

    Barack Obama's 2009 Inaugural Address: Obama's 2013 Inaugural Address

      Obama won a second presidential term in 2012, becoming just the second Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to back-to-back terms. (The other was Bill Clinton.) The second time around, he couldn't exactly campaign on the same promise of "change" from four years earlier.

      There are a few important differences between Obama 1.0 and Obama 2.0.

      In his 2013 inaugural address, Obama focuses more on social issues, including equal pay for women, immigration, and LGBTQ rights. With the financial crisis in America's rear-view mirror (sorta), the public is now getting a glimpse of the more perfect union Obama wants to create.

      He also tempers his language to be more general on promises. At the beginning of the 2013 address, Obama calls progress and change "a never-ending journey" (source). That's a bit more Zen and a little less ambitious-sounding than guaranteeing that challenges "will be met" (6.3). Facing hostile Republican majorities in the House and Senate, it makes sense for Obama to tone down those promises—or at least to sound like he is.