r = re.compile(r"^\s+", re.MULTILINE)
r.sub("", "a\n b\n c") # "a\nb\nc"

# or without compiling (only possible for Python 2.7+ because the flags option
# didn't exist in earlier versions of re.sub)

re.sub(r"^\s+", "", "a\n b\n c", flags = re.MULTILINE)

# but mind that \s includes newlines:
r.sub("", "a\n\n\n\n b\n c") # "a\nb\nc"