VDH: What If?

VDH examines what the first 6 months of a moderate Obama presidency would have looked like.
I was struck by this paragraph which I think has eluded many who now vehemently support the President from the left-of-left-of-center:

But the key margin that got him from 45 to 53% were the independents and old Reagan Democrats. And what put them on board was not just their weariness with George Bush, but rather their flawed hunch that Obama was another Clinton rather than Carter, a realist and centrist rather than an ossified ideologue, who could talk well, bring factions together, and govern from the center.

Some believe that 53% is an overwhelming landslide in this country. It is not. Obama did not have a mandate to try to move the country as far to the Left as he is attempting to. He will face an electorate in 2010 and 2012 that wholly rejects his policies.