In 1992, when Bill Clinton announced that he planned to “end welfare as we know it,” he was taking up a unique position for a Democrat.

The party of Lyndon Johnson typically had to fight hard to preserve the country’s limited social safety net; it was unprecedented for a Democrat to strongly disparage welfare and vow to destroy it.

In fact, when centrist political operative Bruce Reed heard Clinton give his anti-welfare pitch, Reed was immediately struck by the fact that “it wasn’t the kind of thing most Democrats said.” (This led Reed to enthusiastically join the Clinton campaign.)