I’ve said for a long time that Bill Clinton is the luckiest SOB ever to live. He inherited the left over prosperity of the Reagan boom, got elected because of a squishy moderate Republican (GHW Bush) and a nut case named Perot, and then got a Republican Congress to keep him in line. Absent any of those, he would have never been President, or have been a one termer at best.
Oh I'd say Obama is even luckier, look at the two losers he beat.
Add to that the fact that Bush Sr. had a 90% approval rating immediately after the first Gulf War, the same time that the Democrats were deciding whether or not to run against him. All of the big name Democrats decided not to run, leaving only the junior varsity candidates B.J. Clinton, Paul Tsongas, and Jerry Brown. After Clinton beat the other Democrat losers, Bush's popularity bubble popped just in time for the general election.