With his shifts to the center, Barack Obama is losing his “new politics” brand. But so what? To be elected president, he doesn’t have to be a secular messiah, he just has to be an acceptable Democratic. Recent history shows we don’t elect liberal Democrats president, we elect Southern governors who are centrists. It’s a little late to move to the south or get elected governor, but Obama can certainly move to the center. Perhaps some of his worshipers on the left will get disillusioned, but I suspect most true Obama fans are so credulous it won’t make much of a difference to them. If they could believe Obama’s transcendent-figure shtick, they can believe anything. And for most ordinary people, I suspect the cult of Obama is weird and off-putting and all they want is someone who can turn the page on the Bush years, even if–especially if?–he’s a typical pol. The only downside risk for Obama is that he’s still a question mark to a lot of people and the rapid changes in his positions create more doubts about who he really is and what he really stands for. All things considered, though, it’s a risk worth taking for him.