I think he also may have wanted to be that post-partisan president of red-white-and-blue america from his candidate speeches. He completely dismantled the powerful propaganda machine he had for the campaign, which personally surprised me a lot, as people tend to not simply give up that sort of power.

He wasn't completely naive about politics because most of his significant appointments were from the old highly experienced pool with serious ties to Clinton.

It's also a lot of fun to dig the old threads from 2008 and see what people were posting back then and compare to how things happened