Nixonian in his scheming, Carteresque incompetence -- and spent the bulk of his presidency in the 44-46% approval range.

In a post about ESPN, Ace makes these political observations:

Bush proved -- through most of his term -- that you didn't need all of the country to support you if 40% of the country strongly supported you, and 10% were indifferent. (At the end of his term, when the financial crisis hit, he also proved you definitely needed more than 29% support.)

Obama took that lesson and ran with it. Obama was the most divisive and partisan president in several lifetimes -- Nixonian in his scheming, Carteresque incompetence -- and spent the bulk of his presidency in the 44-46% approval range.

But the bulk of that approval was strong approval from intense partisans, who saw them as their avatar in the unending Culture Wars, and quite possibly an actual Messiah or Buddha sent down by Heaven to redeem that part of humanity that lived in the better zip codes of at least a dozen coastal US cities.

Read more here.