(Note: yeah, I know, I’m still blogging daily. Harder to stop than I thought!)

A year and nearly three weeks ago, I wrote a blog post detailing how Obama might be the Democratic Reagan, and specifically, I noted that he would probably pick up a Reagan technique for selling his initiatives:

From 2009, we might start hearing people talk about “Obama Republicans,” like we heard of “Reagan Democrats” in the 80’s. Obama could get these the same way Reagan did, by speaking directly to the nation in a way that would cause a popular upswell, bringing enough Republicans nervous about their electability over to Obama’s side. And he would not need too many Republicans to get the bills he wants passed, as Congress will likely still have a Democratic majority.

And that’s pretty much exactly what he’s doing now, selling his stimulus plan via his weekly address.

(For better-quality video, click on the “HQ” button in the YouTube menu at lower right after the video starts playing.)

While he is not yet suggesting Americans contact their representatives in Congress and urge them to vote for the bill, this is close to that. And there is evidence of those “Obama Republicans” in Congress, as we saw with the passing of the Lily Ledbetter Act, shot down by Republicans previously, was passed with the votes of all Democrats and a few Republicans, including Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe, considered key swing votes.

By the way, I am very impressed with the new administration’s use of hi-resolution video over broadband Internet. Have you seen the high-quality MP4 version of his weekly addresses on the White House web site? 1280 x 720 resolution (or 720p, HDTV quality), and it downloads dang fast. The whole picture is like this on a 15“ Macbook Pro screen:

With the pixel-for-pixel image quality being this:

Hell, when they get to the closer shot, you can almost count the stars on his lapel-pin flag.