Political realignment

I interpret this as appealing to the current center and convincing them to support your goals.

Of the speech, NRO's Rick Lowry wonders if this part is the "scariest passage":

OBAMA: As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by President's Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government - I don't.

LOWRY: He’s trying to redefine extensive government activism as simple pragmatism, and if he succeeds, might well shift the center of American politics for a generation.

Me: Bush did much more to shift the center. He tried to redefine US government activism as simple pragmatism, except his activism consisted of prisoner torture, civil liberties violations, and a tragically unnecessary and crazy-expensive war while failing to finish the previous one in Afghanistan.

But he did it all "to keep us safe"! Or did you think we're still in Iraq because Bush loves big wars? -- because I'm sure he'd tell you he doesn't!

The problem for guys like Lowry is that Bush's war of choice is now seen as an outrageous tragedy that should have been avoided -- yet Republicans continue to support having gone into it -- so their imperial adventurism eventually shifted the center left and directly caused an intellectual and foreign policy antithesis like Obama to be elected.

Moreover I personally think this tragic war has been a heck of a lot more scary and harmful than the gov't counter-cyclically deficit spending circa $2,000 per living American. How about you?