Barack Obama is tacking to the centre and alarming some supporters. The repositioning began with the first television advertisement of his general election campaign, celebrating “values straight from the Kansas heartland”. He recruited Jason Furman, an economist disliked on the left (the man praised Wal-Mart, for heaven’s sake); he modulated his anti-trade rhetoric; he criticised the Supreme Court for striking down a death-penalty law, and declined to criticise it for throwing out the District of Columbia’s strict gun controls.

Mr Obama has supported new federal money for “faith-based programmes”, endorsed new rules allowing eavesdropping on terrorism suspects, and qualified his promise to talk to Iran’s leader “without preconditions” (there would be some after all). Causing greatest consternation, he has begun to modify his position on a prompt withdrawal from Iraq. The details must depend on conditions at the time, he says. All this is a mixture the left finds toxic – and it allows Republicans to attack Mr Obama for cynicism and inconsistency. So much for his new kind of politics, they say.