One of the Worst Ever.
 This sort of tangential review of the new biography out on the presidency of James K Polk is all good and well — the point made about getting away from some political fighting for his grand accomplishments by limiting himself to his one term — except I am stuck at this line.:
A one-term limit is by no means a guarantee of presidential boldness or success; the only other chief executive to enter office with a promise similar to Polk’s was Rutherford B. Hayes, one of our worst presidents ever.
Wait. I suppose modern opinion holds Rutherford B Hayes as a bad presidency due to the election of 1876 getting defined as the defacto end of Reconstruction, the reason the preceeding Ullysses Grant administration has risen in the Presidential Rankings Sweepstakes. Check out the graph for that effect . But, as you can see, his last ranking was 33rd — a small fall from his previous place in the 20s, complying with our evolving understanding of American history, but at any rate far enough up the list to not get the label “one of our worst presidents ever”.
I want Tim Murphy’s explanation as to where he goes off calling Rutherford Hayes one of the worst!
To be fair, there are four presidents I go blank on, and if someone were to ask me to describe the tenor and accomplishments and failures of their administration (in broad brushes, mind you), I’d go blank. Hayes is one of them. I’ll leave you go guess the other three names I have in mind.
Regarding Polk and his successful work of a single term: it is remarkable to go through the Democratic Party nominees post Jackson, post Van Buren. 1844: Polk, dark horse. 1848: Lewis Cass, a significant splinter group lead by Van Buren did him in. 1852: Franklin Pierce, was old and harkened the country to earlier less tumultous times in a nation that felt itself falling apart. 1856: James Buchanan: was acceptable to all the party factions due to the fact that he had been out of the country for the previous four years. The only way for him to be successful is to have pulled away from the recriminations of his party’s (and countries) sectional battles over slavery, and the would be presidents’ desire to appease and amoelerate all sides.