Colorado, New Mexico, and the other mountain states, home of some of America’s most independent-minded, live-and-let-live inhabitants, have taken notice of Barack Obama’s message.  As many Obamicans across the country, they have responded to this audaciously and unapologetically liberal democrat after having scorned other democratic candidates for decades.  Although the nation is turning bluer, these states appear willing to turn blue only for Obama for they have seemingly recognized his overt emphasis on values they had hitherto only seldom heard articulated by Democrats.

Much to the horror of the likes of Krugman, who have dedicated huge efforts throughout their careers to debunk the Reagan legend, Obama invokes Reagan repeatedly.  Indeed, the harsh criticisms of Reagan, such as his uncompassionate social conservatism, his disastrous embrace of bogus supply-side economics, his bellicose foreign policy rhetoric, his bullying in Central America, and his involvement in treasonous activities with Iran, should not be forgotten by history.  However, there was much about Reaganism with which most Americans relate, and Obama has tapped this.

Although Sen. Clinton offered shopping lists of brilliant solutions to countless problems as she campaigned, observers have scratched their heads as voters have tuned these out.  Instead, they have responded to Obama’s Reaganesque message about hard work, study, parenting, reading to our children, responsible fatherhood, and turning off the TV, in short, the message of self-reliance and family.  All too often in the back and forth over policy, it is all too easy for politicians to lose sight of the basics, and indeed, even as American voters are swining away from conservative laissez-faire viewpoints and embracing more government involvement in regulating our society, they want to be assured that such regulation is for the sake of individual achievement and rewarding hard work and initiative.

Obama has therefore advocated the use of government, not as a huge program promoter or as a source of handouts and entitlements.  Government, according to Obama, will help with education, preserving good jobs, but individuals must work hard and be self-reliant.  In places like Colorado and to Republicans across the nation who do want health care and less corporate abuse but who are also wary of too much government, Obama’s message resonates.

In addition, he accentuates the self-reliance message by bringing up character, and he does so by example.  No matter how much people disagreed with Reagan, he was difficult not to admire, whether he was joking at paramedics while a bullet was lodged in his chest, or giving speeches that would always exalt Americans.  Obama, with his disdain for negatives and his flair for remaining above the fray, once again walks a walk that Americans have learned to admire in him as they did in Reagan.