One of the things to watch in the presidential campaign is the prospect that Senator Obama is planning to contest the Deep South. Such a strategy, if it’s to be a serious effort, will necessarily involve a move to the political center, and the evidence that Mr. Obama is considering such a strategy suggests that his experience in the primaries has taught the man from Illinois not to rely on nascent liberalism to carry him to the White House.

During the primaries, Mr. Obama’s campaign thrived on the enthusiasm of the far-left wing of the Democratic Party. By outflanking Senator Clinton on the left, most particularly regarding the Iraq War and free trade, Mr. Obama established his early momentum. His success fueled speculation that America was entering a new political era. President Bush’s low approval rating, economic uncertainty, and the opposition to the Battle of Iraq put conservatives on the defensive, according to this narrative, empowering the new brand of liberalism that Mr. Obama had come to represent.

Toward the end of Mr. Obama’s campaign, reality began to interfere with this assessment. Working-class voters in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Indiana chose Mrs. Clinton even as Mr. Obama’s nomination had become a virtual certainty. This near-implosion of Mr. Obama’s campaign appeared to stem from his strident liberal orthodoxy, which played well at some fundraisers and rallies while alienating the relatively moderate voters at the core of the party. If Mr. Obama’s far-left positions made him vulnerable in his campaign against Mrs. Clinton, they could be fatal in a campaign against Senator McCain.

There are signs that Mr. Obama has learned this lesson. The senator’s pronouncements on two recent Supreme Court decisions were, from the perspective of the base of his party, heretical. Mr. Obama criticized the Court for ruling capital punishment in cases not involving murder unconstitutional. He praised, albeit lukewarmly, the Court’s ruling that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms belongs to individuals. By hiring a prominent Wal-Mart defender as his chief economic advisor, Mr. Obama distanced himself from his past criticism of a store that has been a boon to working-class shoppers nationwide.

These sops to social conservatism and common conservative sense could serve Mr. Obama well in the Deep South, where local Democrats and Republicans often hold indistinguishable views on issues like gun control. The executive director of Alabama’s Democratic Party, James Spearman, told us in an interview that no national Democrat has attracted the kind of enthusiasm Mr. Obama has received in Alabama during his lifetime. Mr. Spearman worked on the campaign of Travis Childers, a Democrat who earlier this year won a special election in a Republican district with a platform that emphasized fiscally conservative, pro-life, and pro-gun positions.

“Most people overlook the fact that 70% of Alabama public officials are Democrats,” Mr. Spearman said. Can Mr. Obama win in the South? Moving to the far left during the primaries and then to the political center during the general election may not exemplify the new approach to politics that Mr. Obama claims to represent, but if he continues moving in that direction and makes it credible, a lot of people will be paying attention in a part of the country that has lately been voting Republican.