now that he has been elected (and he has picked his economic team), we could laugh about this statement. But let's rather pick it apart:
(1) it means that "socialist" is an insult - interesting from Europe where pretty much every country is or has been governed in recent years by a socialist or social-democratic party...
(2) it means that, for many, any attempt at having the State provide some sort of health coverage for all and/or some kind of redistribution is "socialism" - which just indicates a very wide understanding of words indeed
(3) it illustrates the difficulty of communicating political debates across the Atlantic - some of the issues:
- the Republican party is now so far "right" that many of its members would not even be accepted in "mainstream" extreme-right/neo-fascist parties in Europe - they would have to go to the "lunatic fringe" of the splitter-microparties. Say, Sarah Palin. Why? because no one remotely electable in Europe would stand for creationism - put in another way: no one would vote for a creationist!
- the political discourse in the US is still defined at least in part by "fear of the reds", even though 1917 and the Cold War are long past - the only other country where I can think of something partly similar (on the right only) is Italy (but obviously with very different roots)
- at the same time, the US sees, and has seen, massive State intervention in the economy, and everyone wants more, or nearly everyone!
Now, Obama probably would sit somewhere on the centre-right in most European countries, simply because the political field is in a different place altogether. But, lest you think this means you can just say Europe is more to the "left" or America to the "right" - where do you expect the next Prime Minister or President to be black???
[and, a wink to despairing French leftists, where do you get real primaries to choose your leader?]
But this leads us neatly to the car industry, I guess?
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