The average person’s perception of Carter has nothing to do with Carter’s politics, it’s that he builds free houses for poor people...
The lesson from the Bush Presidency is that a President must manage his image, and not let the media do it for him.
Reagan was every bit as vilified by the Left as Bush was, but Reagan was a master at projecting an image, in such a manner that the harsh portrayals of him by his critics didn’t stick. Bush never understood how to counter that.