Working class Americans do not really care about left/right or socialist/capitalist. They care about esoteric ideals like jobs, housing, personal savings/debt and medical care. It just so happens the left historically does a better job on those issues, though some debate that.

What is undebateable is that Obama campaigned on that platform, McCain and Co. attacked it, and he won 350+ electoral votes plus a supermajority in both chambers of Congress. His approval ratings and his partys Congressional caucus have dwindled since, not because he is "too liberal" or "socialist," but because he took office doing things like leaving homebuyers twisting in the wind while handing a $700 billion bailout to banks that knowingly and feloniously issued them bad loans. Supposedly he is FINALLY throwing the unwitting borrowers a $25 billion life line three years later, but if you check the fine print in the thread I just posted on that you will find all it does is protect those same banks from prosecution for their crimes. Homebuyers even a single payment behind are eligible for no relief, and what relief is available will be given out in order of increasing need.

Or take healthcare "reform." After six months of corporate bailout after corporate bailout his attention at last turned to his campaign cornerstone. So after campaigning on a public option with no public mandate, while opponents called it socialism and he won a landslide anyway, he delivered NO public option WITH a public mandate. It ensures no one healthcare, but requires everyone acquire it, while doing nothing about skyrocketing prices that prevented tens of millions buying insurance even under the threat of DEATH (but a $750 tax penalty will "fix" that. ) The only people who benefit are—another group of megacorps, this time the insurance industry promised $900 billion in tax money, plus whatever they charge those of their now captive customers who do not qualify for federal assistance.

Obama is in (deep) trouble, not because he attempted the socialism Republicans continually accuse him of, but because he did NOT. America was on board with another New Deal, just as in 1932; they were not convinced it would work, but knew what we had been doing for the past decade had failed. Instead we got more of the same, and people who voted for change are wondering why they bothered. Obama got Americans to believe again, convinced us we could actually get a populist president who works for us instead of lobbyists, and must now face the publics outrage at forsaking that pledge.

Even if he struggles to re-election, for no better reason than that Romney is such an awful candidate, Obamas legacy is probably Sammaels: Betrayer of Hope.