I agree halfway, Dante. But, I think in general Americans LIKE their president. It's the home team thing to do. Sure, there are extremes in both sides of the electorate. But, if Ford hadn't had the RW challange of Reagan, and the Nixon pardon, and then the gaffe about Poland, he wins in 76. Carter, though a policy wonk who was proved right by time in the ME, interest rates, stealth technology, energy efficiency ... was God awful politican, and Reagan was very likeable guy. I never voted for him as governor or potus, but I genuinely liked him. BushI ... look at the swing states he lost. If the extreme of the RW hadn't erupted over taxes, they'd never had Bill Clinton to drive them into a state of insanity. BushII scared the shit outta everybody to get re-elected, but he really isn't a bad person. Horrible potus, but not a bad guy.
Unless, you're an old white person, Obama has an admirable backgroud. In some ways he's post racism. He showed some courage on the Iraq war.
You see the posts here. "Obama won because haflfthe country gets a handout." Clue: generally elections are around 47-53 or thereabouts. You don't think Mitt got rich by sucking off the tit? There's a cayman island just for you. When Mitt made the 47% comment, he was dead.
And that's why Cruz is poison. A party can't win by playing on divisions and divisiveness. Sure, Duckass got killed on Willie Horton, but all Duckass had to say is "I'd have wanted to rip his heart out," but he whimped out. Tagged as a whimp. BushII tagged Kerry as a flipflopper because he IS a filpflopper.
Reagan, Clinton, LBJ .... never would have dismissed any portion of the electorate as being "less worthy." And Romney by all reports is a decent man. He certainly was not divisive as a governor. Not a backslapper, but not tossing anyone out of the boat. He seemed insincere, imo, because he was insincere. He had to run as a TPM to get the nomination, but the country simply isn't gonna elect a TPM as potus.