Obama's centrist moves upsetting the left

WASHINGTON, July 3 (UPI) -- Likely Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's more centrist-sounding themes are giving his base constituency pause, liberal bloggers say.

Obama, D-Ill., recently criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for ruling child rapists couldn't be executed and did not oppose a decision overturning a gun ban. He also said he supported faith-based social work and announced he'd vote for a bill that would immunize from lawsuits telephone companies that allowed warrantless eavesdropping of their customers, all sending his liberal supporters into a swoon, USA Today reported.

"When a candidate decides to move to the center, he shouldn't move away from us," said Mike Stark, a University of Virginia law student who started an online group on Obama's Web site urging the candidate to vote against the wiretapping bill.

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of a leading liberal blog, Daily Kos, says he plans to withhold a donation to Obama because of the wiretapping bill.

"It's sort of a defining issue right now," Moulitsas told USA Today. "It's huge."

Moulitsas said Obama's critics will support him in November.

Lee Miringoff, Marist Poll director, agreed that Obama's base won't abandon him, but warned the candidate runs a risk "anytime he moves from new-style politics ... to something that has a scent of old-school politics."