All of that is not to excuse President Obama. He has struggled to contain self-inflicted wounds — particularly in his second term — ranging from the IRS scandal to the problems of vets receiving adequate and timely care. His relations with Congress — Democrats included — have never been warm and, as a result, his ability to ask for the benefit of the doubt is non-existent. His underestimation of just how polarized the country and the Congress have become was entirely avoidable; senior members of his inner circle — many of whom came directly from the campaign(s) — were all too aware of that reality. His belief in his own powers of persuasion — to the Congress and the country — were also heavily overrated.

But, it’s hard to see how Obama could be considered “successful” even if he hadn’t made the various mistakes — in governance and the politics of politics — that he did. His presidency began at a time not only of unprecedented polarization in Congress and the country but also at a moment in which a president’s ability to bend the country to his will had reached a low ebb.

I was talking to a Democratic pollster recently about President Obama’s weak job approval ratings and what it might mean for Democrats on the ballot this fall. I asked how Obama could move his numbers up and what a “good place” for him might look like. The pollster responded that the political world needed to change its definition of what being a popular president entails in this day and age. His point was that if Obama could somehow crawl back to 50 percent approval before November, that would be a huge success. Obama’s ceiling — almost no matter what he said or did — was around 52 or 53 percent, the pollster argued.