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The Center-Right Nation Exits Stage Left

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Today's Democrats may well overreach in much the same way that Republicans did after they won their congressional majority in 1994, when they took the "center" out of center-right. If so, Democratic hubris will create opportunities for the GOP to get a hearing.

And so far, center-left government is largely an abstraction for the country. People like the sound of it, especially against the backdrop of a financial crisis and recession. In these center-left times, voters are receptive -- or rather, it is their receptiveness that makes these times center-left. But whether they will like the new Obama tilt in practice remains to be seen.

So Republicans should not despair. They will have plenty of time to work up a critique of Obama's policies as they unfold. But Republicans should not count on Democratic failure -- and they certainly should not regard it as inevitable because of a conservatism they impute to an electorate that has, shall we say, moved on.

lindberg@hoover.stanford.edu

Tod Lindberg is a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and the editor of Policy Review. He was an informal foreign policy adviser to the McCain campaign.

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