If he wanted, Obama could rally workers--Black, white and Latino--around a campaign that spoke to their concerns, with strong proposals to help working-class people deal with the consequences of being hammered by recession.
But Obama doesn't want to campaign on this basis. He wants to assure Wall Street and Corporate America, which have shifted sharply away from the Republicans to supporting the Democrats, that he is not a real threat. And so Obama tilts to the right--in a very similar manner to Bill Clinton's triangulation--to try to win over "swing voters."