Eisenhower -- similar personalities and parallel achievements. Both had scandal-free administrations that recognized the desirability of protocol and precedent in making decisions. Neither built his Party overall. The Congressional elections of 1958 and 2014 are similar. It will be easier for people to appreciate Obama after he is no longer President than Eisenhower because of the difference between Kennedy and Toxic-Waste-Dump.
Interesting take. I'd always seen Obama as a kind of bizarro-world Democratic Nixon: took over after a tumultuous years, saddled with a failing war, pushed through domestic legislation and foreign policy changes that were fairly big then but reverberated more afterwards, and ultimately sunk by a scandal (though in Obama's case it was a non-scandal and fell more on his chosen successor than himself).
All that said, the Eisenhower comparison holds up pretty well, too, for all the reasons you mentioned. Added to that, Eisenhower's VP lost his own bid for the Presidency in a close and dubiously determined election.
And to those who said Trump: besides being hackish, it's *really* shortsighted to judge a presidency before it's over.
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