Yea, he really shouldn't stand by his values in his first four years because it might endanger his 2nd term. Are you kidding?

His health care plan wasn't particularly leftist as much as it's corporatist, the way he has run the war and his blatant disregard for civil rights has been in line with the last administration. Don't look for gun control out of this administration, he is moderate (the new moderate is the old right) on the issue. I can't really think of a socialist policy that he has enacted. You could call trying to buy his way out of the recession socialist if you wanted, but that is really just a case of text book econ poorly focused and cheaply enacted. I guess bailing out the banks and the auto companies could be called socialist, but your average socialist wouldn't see it that way. He did a bit for worker rights which is leftist, but no where near the magnitude of his corporate welfare programs. The guy is mostly centrist with a few areas of extreme fascist (enshrining the right to indefinitely detain american citizens without due process into law, increased use of NSL, increased monitoring of the communications of U.S. citizens and and a record rate of FOIA rejections to name a few), just a smattering of leftism and a few good speeches.

He won't go left ever. He isn't a leftist or he has painted himself into a crazy corner of political ineffectiveness and political paranoia that forces himself to moderate his policies to death.