Obama knew this and he chose a path of reaching out. To me, this means he felt he was President of ALL the people and as such he had to reach out to attempt to include the Far Right in legislative discussions. The Party of No knew if they did not compromise, made every legislative attempt a marathon, or to put it simply, let the country go to hell that they would win the next election cycle. In other words they put party ahead of country. Didn't the far right pundits say, "we want Obama to fail". So Obama was damned if he did seek compromise.
History will judge Obama as one of our great presidents. He did save the country from depression and achieved a major step toward Universal Health Care. Health care is a right, not a privilege. He took the right road, the correct road. He was after all the President of ALL the people.