He is certainly still very charismatic and many of his proposals were very Republican-sounding. A couple of things though:
He proposed getting rid of oil subsidies last year too and the Democrat controlled Congress did nothing about it.
He promised to veto any bill with earmarks in it, but he has never had a problem with earmarks before. He signed plenty of earmark-laden spending bills when Democrats controlled both houses. As recently as last month, he was prepared to sign a catchall spending measure stuffed with earmarks before it collapsed in the Senate after an outcry from conservatives over the bill’s $8 billion-plus in home-state pet projects.
I’m all for a re-organization of the federal goverment though if it makes it more efficient. All for holding bad teachers accountable as well.