As we speak, brilliant pundits from across the nation are contemplating the entirely irrelevant question of whether we are a center-left or center-right nation. Who cares? Barack Obama is about to plunge us into a Marxist dictatorship, remember? Red bandanas? Re-education camps?

Or not.

We are two months away from any real-time decisions or major initiatives offered by the Obama administration, so it is too early to render verdicts. Yet to this point, Obama has flipped predictable political thinking. It appears he may govern to the right of his campaign promises.

It truly is a time of hope.

Obama's campaign was a feast of platitudinous feel-gooderism and leftist populism. Yet judging from his recent economic appointments (Larry Summers, Tim Geithner), Obama's ears are open to pragmatic moderate types who aren't wholeheartedly on a redistribution-of-wealth kick.

Some high-profile progressive pundits quickly have taken to their keyboards and angrily have admonished Obama for neglecting a historic victory, and they have demanded a fulfillment of their, er, his mandate. Evidently, they haven't been paying attention.

If Obama has proved something conclusively, it's that he is a brilliant politician. Brilliant politicians normally will exhibit an exceptional grasp of the electoral landscape. Brilliant politicians, in fact, typically are elected to second terms because brilliant politicians understand that Americans share one dogmatic and incontrovertible conviction: They want their 401(k)s to stop hemorrhaging.

So no one can blame progressives for getting antsy. When The Washington Post describes Obama's lead economic team as a group that "firmly believe(s) that limited government spending combined with free markets can create lasting prosperity," well, as Chris Matthews might say, that sort of thing can give fiscal conservatives a thrill up the leg. Continued...