Can anyone name the most recent American president who ran to succeed a two-term president of his or her party who had an approval number of well under 50 percent, and won? Nobody can, because nobody did.

Several people did spin out a one-party run for more than three cycles, but the circumstances were special, and the occasions were rare. In 1908 and 1988 William Howard Taft and the elder George Bush succeeded Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, but the latter two presidents were already legends.