A popular mandate does not translate into congressional cooperation.  Hence, Reagan not being able to enact his agenda as easily as Bush II.  The right spent 30 years building the foundation that allowed Bush to act with impunity, by electing a congress that supported their agenda.  We need to keep working to do the same, not call our leaders sellouts with bad motives when they can't achieve what we want.

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

I suspect that Obama genuinely failed to see what he could have achieved with his mandate.

That is the benign take. Another possibility is that he did see what could have been pushed through and was frightened at the prospect. Instead of seeing the insurance industry as a bunch of parasites on the body politic which we had an opportunity to eliminate or greatly weaken, he saw them as legitimate players whose interests had to be accommodated. I think this hypothesis better accounts for his pro-active give-aways.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."