Over the years, I’ve made some bad predictions. I remember writing columns that said Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson would do a good job in their economic positions. I thought Barack Obama might pick a few Southerners for his cabinet. But I’ve made some good predictions, especially with respect to the 2008 election.

I predicted that Obama would defeat Hillary Clinton, when smart money favored her fundraising and connections. I thought John McCain would win the GOP Primary, even when he was in single digits. And I said that Obama would win when even Democrats told me that America would never elect an African-American as President of the USA. In my research (rejected for publication everywhere) I looked closely at the survey of American racial attitudes published by Stanford University. I found that while some racism was present, it was far less pronounced than the media reported.

Now we’ve seen another prediction of mine show promise: Obama is more of a centrist than a hard-core liberal. At a time when the National Journal proclaimed Obama to be “the most liberal senator in Washington, DC,” I looked at data from the American Conservative Union (ACU) on his voting record, which showed a less partisan streak than the National Journal claimed. Furthermore, I noted his decision to co-sponsor legislation with conservative Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn on ethics reform.

Additionally, I remembered a radio news story more than a year ago, when Obama flirted with running for U.S. President. It interviewed Illinois Democrats, who were “disappointed” with Obama’s service in the state legislature. “We thought he was going to be some great progressive liberal, but he turned out to be a moderate,” one complained. “He spent as much time working with Republicans as he did with our party!”

We’ve had our first test of Obama during his cabinet selection. Some Democrats were shocked that he picked more Clinton administration officials, centrists, and even Republicans, instead of hard-core liberals. They’ve complained that he chose Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation, knowing full well his views on God and gay rights. Ironically, a few conservative columns have championed Obama’s election as “proof” that America can no longer be considered a racist society.

It should also be noted that America’s enemies aren’t hailing Obama’s victory at all. Cartoons slamming Obama are almost as plentiful as those attacking Bush. Some are drawn in such a racist fashion that might outdo anything the Klan might depict.

Obama’s election doesn’t “prove” that racism no longer exists in the United States any more than it “proves” that America is truly a liberal country. What Obama has shown is that his skin color doesn’t make him a different “species” of politician. Barack Obama is a smart, savvy political figure who realizes that this country largely consists of moderates, not ideologues, and he hopes to appeal directly to them. Whether it is a combination of tax cuts and spending cuts, a health care plan which will probably look more like McCain’s proposal, a foreign policy that focuses more on al-Qaeda than Iraq, Obama is likely to be a lot more centrist that many on both sides might realize.