Socialized healthcare is hardly "far-left", and I can't think of any other specific policy you might have been referring to with that statement.
Sadly that qualifies as "far-left" in America policy-makers. Few times have there been truly liberal policies proposed in the last 15 years. As for the rest, it was mostly the promises he made before his term, limiting corporations and whatnot. Of course it was unfounded and never was even remotely addressed once he took over, but I still held out hope longer than I should have.
If you actually look at the concrete positions he laid out in his 2008 bid for president instead of focusing on the empty rhetoric like "hope" and "change" it was fairly easy to predict what he would do as president. He was actually pretty straight forward.