Could the clash between Clintonian "realism" and Sandersian "idealism" come down to personal history?
Hillary Clinton's sales pitch to Democrats is simple: Get real! The Republicans controlling Congress (and who'll likely still be in charge in 2017) won't even allow President Obama to fill the late Antonin Scalia's vacant seat on the Supreme Court. There is no way in hell, she says, that these intransigent SOBs will pass pie-in-the-sky bills like Bernie Sanders' proposal to replace Obamacare — an insurance company-friendly scheme originally conceived by a right-wing think tank, which Republicans now call socialistic — with Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All," which would eliminate insurers in an actually socialistic way.
Hillary says she won't make promises she can't keep. Maybe that, as opposed to the mountains of cash she collects from Big Pharma and the piles of dough she rakes in from health insurance giants, is why she thinks the United States can't join the rest of the First World by creating a universal coverage health care system.