MSNBC's Chris Matthews suggested on Monday that if Barack Obama listens to the calls coming even from within his own party for him to play to the center, he will not be bold enough.

"It seems to me that he's got one chance to get everything done," Matthews stated passionately on Hardball. "Ronald Reagan taught everybody that. Get it done the first year or don't talk about it. ... He's got to do it. He can't say, 'I'll put it off till after the year after next.' ... Do you think this guy can survive as president if all he does is do a little tax cuts and push SCHIP?"

Matthews put the question of boldness to two political strategists, Democrat Steve McMahon and Republican Todd Harris, but neither one seemed to respond to Matthews' implication that Obama needs to do something visionary to fulfill his promises.

"Doing something dramatic and bold on the economy I think is something they're very interested in doing," McMahon began. But he also insisted that "the middle decided this election and the middle of the country -- the swing voters -- are waiting for him to address their economic concerns."

"Big doesn't need to be conflated with liberal," Harris commented. "I think it's important that people not lose sight over what this election was and what it wasn't. What it was was a historic victory for Barack Obama. What it was not was a wholesale realignment of American politics to the left."

"You guys are so -- you speak with a forked tongue, Todd!" exploded Matthews. "Geroge Bush won with less votes than Al Gore -- you talk about mandates. [Bush] came in there and did exactly what he wanted to do. He cut taxes for the rich across the board. ... He took us to war in Iraq."

"The idea that you should pussyfoot if you're a Democrat," continued Matthews, "but if you're a Republican go in there whole hog -- you have a totally two standards here! Republicans should take advantage of every victory and call it a mandate. Democrats should go in there and be very cautious. 'Gee whiz, I'm sorry for being here, I hope we don't offend the conservatives.'" He then concluded, "Some people do well by doing modest things that are highly symbolic, like President Clinton did. ... I wonder whether Barack Obama better be bold or he will be forgotten and he will not be what he promised to be."
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/GOP_hyp...
What we're hearing instead from Republican politicians, pollsters and pundits is reassurance that the United States is a "center-right nation" with an innate distrust of progressive policies. The problem, these soothing voices say, is that under George W. Bush the GOP strayed from its basic philosophy of limited government and adopted the big-spending habits of the Democrats. Republicans need to rediscover their bedrock principles, this theory goes, and after a few years of rule by Barack Obama and his Democratic enablers on Capitol Hill, voters will come running home to papa.

So much is wrong with this analysis that it's hard to know where to begin. Let's start with the basic premise, that of a center-right American polity. To the extent that such a vague label has any real meaning, that may once have been the case. But if ours were a center-right electorate now, one imagines it might have been kinder to a center-right politician such as John McCain.

After all, that's what McCain basically is, or used to be. To win the Republican nomination, he had to swerve so far to the right that there was no way he could make his way back within shouting distance of the center. Not that he tried very hard: By the end of the campaign, he was suggesting that progressive taxation -- a concept that most Americans accept, having been convinced of its wisdom by Republican icon Teddy Roosevelt -- represents some sort of creeping socialism.

My guess, in any event, is that this country oscillates pretty freely in the range between center-right and center-left, and that it's clearly taking a leftward swing. My guess is that in stimulating the economy, re-regulating the financial system, making "green" technology a reality and ending the war in Iraq, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Obama will feel more public pressure to speed up than slow down.
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