And, as much pressure as Obama is getting here, Clinton would have gotten far more and the pressure would likely have ensued from the time she entered office.

We have no idea how she would have been as president, but I'm hard pressed to believe any Democrat would have been worse in terms of Democratic issues than Obama.

Heck, he never really ran as a true Democrat.  In fact he was constantly running away from Democratic ideals.

And the infuriating inkblots Obama created all through the campaign are even more infuriating when he uses them to deliberately poorly define policy.

It's true the ostensible policy differences between her and Obama were at the margins, but she was to the Democratic side of him across the board on domestic policy, so those marginal differences added up.  I thought she "got it" about health care, about the middle class being in crisis, and about confronting the Republicans, and Obama didn't.  I thought she would fight tooth and nail.  I never got that from Obama, who seemed (and still seems) to think he could compromise, conciliate, and jawbone his way to the promised land.  It was never going to happen.

Medicare Part D was enacted in 2003.  Sure, some small-government conservatives grumbled about it, but hardly anyone "turned on Bush" until Katrina and all that.  Once Bush became unpopular, suddenly it became important to make sure everyone understood that Bush was the farthest thing from a conservative.