Former french president jacques chirac wasn't more gifted than other politicians of his time and his presidency wasn't less of an overall disaster He was relatively popular for a start, as much as a ted cruz, more or less. Not extraordinarily popular but he had his supproters However, he's among the least hated presidents, and you know why? Because when he was president he kept a low profile, "spent his time in the basement", like after a while you forget he's even there, meanwhile all other politicians ran their mouth, ran into various controversies, and gave various people a reason to hate them... He did some good stuffs, like when he said no to the second iraq invasion, and that's about it, that's pretty much all he did that is worth remembering So yeah the basement strategy, in that sense, it can work