And they’re coming just in time for campaign season, ahead of what was already going to be a difficult summer of people getting acclimated to their new plans and new insurance rates being announced.

Democrats will be hoping Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s resignation — kept tightly under wraps since the one-on-one meeting in early March when she gave Obama the news — will finally force the president closer to the offensive, aggressive position on Obamacare that they’d been begging for.

( WATCH: Kathleen Sebelius career highlights)

In the post-nuclear option Senate, as long as the White House can keep 51 Democrats on board, President Barack Obama can count on OMB director Sylvia Matthews Burwell being confirmed to replace Sebelius.

But Republicans will be counting on doing their damage long before the vote goes to the floor, starting with the hearings.

“We should make them a priority because it’s an opportunity to get answers about the future of healthcare for Americans,” said Republican National Committee spokesperson Kirsten Kukowski. “We believe Republicans should focus on the big questions that remain about Obamacare — access to care and cost for millions of Americans who have already been suffering consequences of the Democrats’ signature law.”

( PHOTOS: 10 Sebelius quotes about the Obamacare website)

Democrats say they like the contrast this sets up: Republicans want to keep fighting the same old battle over Obamacare, they’ll say, while Obama and his allies want to keep getting the system in shape — and by the way, so do the 7.5 million people who signed up for the law.

“It’s a helpful way to continue this discussion that Republicans want to have in Washington,” said a senior administration official Thursday. “Do we want to go into that with somebody who bears the scars and bruises of the last five years, or do we want somebody who can start fresh, has the credentials and was confirmed by the Senate 96-0?”

”GOP can’t help themselves. they’re gonna turn this into a circus,” a Democratic strategist emailed. “If we’re strong, we’ll be fine. If we use the hearings as an opportunity to turn the issue around on Republicans, we’re in good shape.”

( QUIZ: How well do you know Kathleen Sebelius?)

Sebelius’s resignation wasn’t part of an coordinated plan with allies. Once chief of staff Denis McDonough was brought in to help begin planning the exit and sort through Burwell’s selection, according to White House aides, he kept the circle of those in the know very small, to prevent what would have been a very damaging leak in the final stages of enrollment.

Senior Senate Democrats didn’t get a heads up from the White House about the resignation, according to two Senate sources.

“Let’s just say, it caught a lot of people up here by surprise,” a senior Senate Democratic aide said.

Obama and his staff had a plan for how to handle health care in the midterms: avoid talking about it as much as possible, and bank on the intensity of attention around the problems fading. Maybe, just maybe, there would be enough people realizing benefits or getting tired of Republican talk of repeal that Obama would be able to get some of them to pay attention to his economic agenda.

( Also on POLITICO: Website fiasco will taint Sebelius’ legacy)

Obama’s campaign trail plan won’t change in the wake of the Sebelius resignation, according to White House aides. Expect to see plenty of events unfold like Wednesday night’s DCCC/DSCC fundraiser in Houston, when the president ticked through a laundry list of legislative priorities, but didn’t mention Obamacare in his public remarks — not even to brag about the enrollment milestone.

The good news for the White House is that they’ll be rid of a Cabinet secretary who was disappointing internally and externally, who managed to make the already extremely difficult job of revamping the nation’s health care system much, much harder.

The not-so-good news, White House aides know, is that the confirmation could open the administration to a new inquisition, records requests — maybe even subpoenas. House Republicans, though they don’t get a vote on confirmations, may try to get in on the action too.

The White House, though, knows much of that was just as likely if Sebelius had stayed. Now, they will hold up Burwell, between her time in the private sector and at OMB, as the symbol of moving forward.

“The reason that this is a timely decision is that it’s a natural inflection point in this story,” the senior administration official said. “We’re moving to the next phase of this.”

Sebelius wasn’t Obama’s first choice (Tom Daschle was, before a tax scandal got in his way.) She wasn’t liberal health care advocates’ first choice (Howard Dean was.) She was, though, meant as a strong consensus choice: a former state insurance commissioner and a Democrat elected twice in a heartland Republican state, she was supposed to be a calm but confident public presence — a capable manager to get things running and running well.

She wasn’t.

Long before the website rollout, Sebelius was causing headaches in meetings where staffers were sometimes frustrated by her flubbing details, or on the relatively friendly set of the Daily Show last October, struggling to explain what was going wrong with the “glitches.”

She was, after all, the one who tied the administration to the 7 million enrollment number that the Congressional Budget Office came up with, tagging that as what “success looks like.” And she was the one in charge of a website development process that, until a few weeks ago, made that goal next to impossible in the minds of most in the administration.

The White House’s successful enrollment campaign happened without her — in fact, in spite of her.

Sebelius quit just in time to not get in the way — and to take one last trip up to Capitol Hill, this time to announce the latest triumph.

“Last week, we announced that 7.1 million Americans have signed up for private insurance through the marketplace,” Sebelius told the Senate Finance Committee Thursday. “As of this week, 400,000 additional Americans have signed up – and we expect that number to continue to grow.”

Here’s the kind of thing Obama could have said at the Rose Garden last week: “Secretary Sebelius was a leader in the long effort to make history for our country with passage of the Affordable Care Act. She has been the key figure in the day-to-day work of implementing the law and securing new protections for patients.”

He didn’t.

That, instead, was the response to the resignation news from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who got her own special thank-you from Obama in the Rose Garden last week. Sebelius was there too, but as they celebrated the triumph of the law that was technically the top item in her portfolio the last five-and-a-half years, the president didn’t acknowledge her presence, or even mention her name.

Sebelius and Burwell will both be at Obama’s announcement, and both will speak. And it’s not like Obama’s not going to turn around at the end of the Rose Garden speech tomorrow and ask for Sebelius’ ID badge: She will transition out in May, with Burwell remaining at OMB in the meantime. The White House hasn’t sorted out yet whether they’ll move Burwell into an acting role at HHS if the confirmation process isn’t as speedy as Obama hopes.

There was at least some sign Thursday night that he might actually get his wish — that Burwell might be subbed in for Sebelius without major trouble.

“Sylvia Burwell is an excellent choice to be the next HHS Secretary,” John McCain tweeted.

There wasn’t a rush to join him.

“The challenge for Ms. Burwell, or any other successor,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the ranking member on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, “is to help Congress find the right way to repair the damage Obamacare has done to American families.”