Paul Brandus

Of all the eyebrow-raising things Donald Trump has said since he became a politician, the one that continues to amaze the most is his boast last year that he could be “more presidential than anybody other than the great Abe Lincoln.”

Trump’s assessment is correct. Mr. Lincoln — humble, gracious, inspiring and effective — is well beyond his reach. But better than all the rest? Sure, and I’m a better quarterback than Tom Brady.

There’s scant evidence thus far that the new president is anywhere close to the men just below Lincoln either, men like George Washington, Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, all of whom top C-SPAN’s latest list of the all-time greatest presidents.

Let’s be honest. Based on the characteristics that C-SPAN used to determine presidential greatness, Trump has shown next to nothing so far that would justify discussing him in the same sentence with these men or almost anyone else in the lineup. In fact, he could be on his way to last place.

But there are a few presidents that Trump that does bring to mind — the other four guys who, like him, lost the popular vote yet somehow became president. John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush: that’s more like it.

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What do those four presidents suggest about Trump, how he’ll do over the long run and how he might be remembered by historians? Here are a few hints:

Of the four prior losers of the popular vote, three — Adams, Hayes and Bush — entered office amid questions of electoral legitimacy. Yet even after his 36-day standoff with Al Gore, Bush began with a 57% approval rating.

There was no dispute about Trump's victory, yet he began with a far lower rating than Bush and has generally drifted lower still in his first two months. Even the one poll the president usually loves to cite — Rasmussen — finds that his approval rating has plunged since Inauguration Day and is underwater.

Trump entered office with no honeymoon. Early miscues and fierce pushback from many corners haven’t helped. In a rare display of humility, the president himself told Fox News that he’s not communicating well with the American people. "My messaging isn't good," he admitted, giving himself just a C on that front.

All of this suggests that Trump has stumbled out of the gate. His enemies have already written him off. This isn’t fair. Some presidents, like Bill Clinton, recovered from a bad start — though others, like Jimmy Carter, never really regained their footing.

Of the four prior losers of the popular vote, only one was re-elected. In 1828, Adams was crushed by his 1824 nemesis Andrew Jackson. Hayes, keeping a pledge made in 1876, declined to run in 1880. Harrison, the only grandson of a president, became commander in chief himself when he beat incumbent Grover Cleveland in 1888. But Cleveland, the 22nd president, turned the tables four years later by returning to the White House as the 24th.

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So the only loser of the popular vote who was ever re-elected was Bush, and it wasn't by much. Had John Kerry done just a bit better in the bellwether state of Ohio, he would have won — and Barack Obama today might still be the junior U.S. senator from Illinois.

Finally, it's worth noting that of the other four popular-vote losers, three of the four are ranked in the bottom third on the greatness scale. C-SPAN’s survey of historians puts Harrison at 30th, Hayes at 32nd and Bush at 33rd. Only Adams — in the middle of the pack at 21st — ranks reasonably well.

Final judgments about Trump are obviously years away, but first impressions still count for something. The combination of historical patterns and his own inferior character — the immature whining, the disregard for facts, the demeaning, graceless, boorish behavior — puts him about as far as you can get not just from Lincoln but from all the others as well.

To say that this doesn't bode well for Trump's eventual place in the presidential pantheon is an understatement. Perhaps he will wind up like the other popular-vote losers, mediocre and poorly ranked. It's possible he’ll do better. But I’ll bet the farm right now that he won’t win a spot on Mount Rushmore or on our money. He might not even last four years.

Paul Brandus, founder and White House bureau chief of West Wing Reports, is the author of Under This Roof: The White House and the Presidencyand a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter @WestWingReport.

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