Both Obama and McCain talked about improving/increasing regulation because that's what they thought the public wanted to hear. Obama was able to do it more cre

Both Obama and McCain talked about improving/increasing regulation because that's what they thought the public wanted to hear. Obama was able to do it more credibly, which helped his campaign. He was always quite unspecific, though, leaving his administration the option of e.g. improving enforcement or oversight rather than just writing a bunch of new rules. Obama never really promised to be a liberal, but both people who wanted to love him and people who wanted to fear him for that were able to hear what they wanted. The lesson here is how important it is that politicians ignore their campaign promises. In Alan Greenspan's book "The Age of Turbulence", Greenspan expresses surprise that the Bush administration wanted to follow through on the tax cuts and rebates they promised when the government was running a surplus even after that surplus was projected to vanish. Other presidents, he recalled, were always willing to throw out campaign promises that no longer suited the circumstances. This is where Obama's vagueness, stern rhetoric, and large margin of victory are reassuring. We probably won't give him too hard a time if he doesn't add a bunch of regulations, or if he decides to change his tax plan a bit. Hopefully this will help the experts do their job.