OBAMA THE CENTRIST? – AT 8:29 A.M. ET:  Does Obama's announcement of a pay freeze for federal workers signal a Clintonesque move to the center?  From The Politico:

President Barack Obama’s embrace of the politically symbolic two-year freeze on federal government salaries aligns him with House Republican leaders and against unions, public workers and some leaders in his own party.

A winner of incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's YouCut online spending-cut poll in May, the proposal would require the House and Senate, at the last minute, to include the freeze in any long-term federal spending bill dealing with the slate of unfinished fiscal 2011 appropriations laws.

The president's adoption of a GOP proposal that goes straight to the ideological divide between the parties — the size, scope and value of government — could be an early sign of White House efforts to move toward the political center in advance of the 2012 election.

It infuriated union leaders, some rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers and even a handful of Republicans — few of whom saw it coming — and thus put the president squarely to the political right of liberals and other labor allies. The word "triangulation" — a reference to President Bill Clinton's practice of calibrating positions to distance him from both the political and left and the political right — floated through the corridors of Congress on Monday.

COMMENT:  I think it will take a lot more than this to convince the electorate that Mr. Obama is traveling back from the left, where he has resided his entire adult life, and maybe before that.

He was simply responding to the outrage felt by Americans when they learned that federal workers now earn more than their civilian counterparts, and have protections the civilian worker can only dream of.  Pensions for government workers have been a main ingredient in the economic woes dragging down both California and New York.

We'll be watching to see if the president makes any other encouraging moves. 

November 30, 2010