by Lee Stranahan
Barack Obama hasn't been a shift away from progressive values. He may be modernizing what they mean in some cases but he's solidly in the progressive tradition But what has scared the Republicans so much is something much more profound.
Progressive policies have become the common sense positions.
This is why the right has been making with all the 'center right' talk and it's why they tried to make Obama into a radical. Since Reagan, things like universal health care or massive government infastructure projects were made out to be wild eyed, left wing positions. Today, we in a situation were they seem not just reasonable but long overdue and the wild eyed people are the Republicans.
I can't stress how important this is. When Obama says (as he did this morning in his press conference) that people want common sense he's exactly right because most Americans don't identify with the extremes of either party. But Obama has helped pull the center to the left by being the steady, adult presence the entire campaign and by laying out the case for a liberal agenda by constantly appealing to simple common sense.