This is more than a little tongue-in-cheek. Since there's a thread titled "The Liberal Case for Ron Paul," and since I ran across THIS article, I figured I'd offer the complementary subject line. I'm not suggesting that I'll vote for Obama or that conservatives should. And E.J. Dionne isn't a conservative. But, if one wanted to try, there is a case to be made. Dionne:

The president's rhetoric has often emphasized caring, compassion and community, the language one expects from a moderately liberal politician. Yet as one of his close aides told me long ago, there is inside a very cool, tough, even hard man. Obama is not reluctant to use American military power. ...Obama is not a moralist...

What Dionne says points much more to Obama being a complex realist than a conservative, but we conservatives don't usually see far-left types as realists, much less as hard-nosed ones. Almost all the "Obama ain't no liberal" lines are complaints from the left, not embraces from the right, but for the sake of argument let's see just how far from the Bernie Sanders left Obama appears to be:
• On the two burning social issues that motivate many conservatives: Obama is a fan of DOMA and against late-term abortions.
• On the relative importance of strict adherence to the most liberal interpretations of the Bill of Rights versus prosecuting the "War on Terrorism": FISA; Guantánamo; rendition; military tribunals.
• USSC: Elena Kagan got a knee-jerk reaction from most conservatives when nominated by Obama fairly early in his term, but she is hardly the most liberal person he could have nominated. Time will tell, but there's reason to believe she'll hardly be a bulwark of some leftist USSC. Read THIS.
• Economics: According to Ezra Klein, Obama is "a moderate Republican from the early 1990s" when it comes to his policies. As further evidence, consider that Ron Paul and many leftists agree that Obama's not a socialist but what they call a "corporatist".

Enough to call Obama a conservative in liberal clothing? Hardly. But the GOP field of Presidential candidates is looking a bit thin and weak. Some Republicans may find that their nominee is someone who takes the positions they like but seems poorly qualified. Others may find that the nominee takes positions far to the right of the average Republican. For those who are a good distance into the "moderate" territory of conservatism, Obama might at least be worthy of cursory consideration.

For neo-cons, who take "liberal" positions on social issues but are aggressive when it comes to internationalism, Obama may be even more attractive.

Obama is almost certainly further right than Cameron, which doesn't stop him from being enormously popular with the British left. Go figure....

Sassenach wrote:Obama is almost certainly further right than Cameron, which doesn't stop him from being enormously popular with the British left. Go figure....

You are probably right on matters international and cultural, but on economic issues, Obama is very left. Not Marxist left, but most certainly Keynesian left. Cameron appears to be conservative on these matters.

Ray Jay wrote:

Sassenach wrote:Obama is almost certainly further right than Cameron, which doesn't stop him from being enormously popular with the British left. Go figure....

You are probably right on matters international and cultural, but on economic issues, Obama is very left. Not Marxist left, but most certainly Keynesian left. Cameron appears to be conservative on these matters.

"very left. Not Marxist left. . ." Honestly, the Bush years and the Obama years have begun to blur together to me, so many of the players and policies are the same. Granted, there was the economic crisis and extraordinary measures were taken by Bush administration and continued by Obama, but other than the TARP and Stimulus, which were extraordinary, what specifically are you thinking of as "very left?"

The stimulus plan including spending of about $400 billion, the auto company / union bailout, and the health care bill come to mind.

Ray Jay wrote:The stimulus plan including spending of about $400 billion, the auto company / union bailout, and the health care bill come to mind.

You name two of the extraordinary measures that were specifically granted (and are rather easily explained as extraordinary) by both geojanes and Ezra Klein in the above linked article. Third, you name health care which, Klein argues, traces at least some of its policy pedigree to 1990s moderate republican thinkers. Did you read the Klein article, RayJay?

I didn't.

Bush was leftist if you ignore the military
Obama is leftist if you forgive his lefty promises that never came to be
...pretty much the same peson so far!?

Too left of center for me no mater how you spin him!

Bush a leftist? My goodness, Tom, you've jumped the shark!