Putin's rule at this point is built around extra-constitutional measures. He has managed to set himself up as an arbiter among various people who owe their power and success to him personally. It's built around personal influence in the Russian intelligence community, and business interests (particularly among natural resource rents) controlled by ex-intelligence operatives - see
siloviki.
Putin's power is based on effective control of the government - but that power is not needed to be wielded by actual political office (as witnessed by Putin's continuing to exercise power as paramount leader when not in the office of the Presidency.)
It is impossible for any American to wield power as Putin does because the US political system does not work that way. Can anyone really imagine an ex-President getting an old protege elected after his term expires, and then controlling the Presidency through him? No - whoever is now President would do whatever he wants. In the US, real power is exercised by the office itself, not the person himself. The "mastermind" behind this would quickly learn the government bureaucracy reports to the new President, not him.
Not to mention that all the methods Putin used to consolidate personal power would be impossible in the US as well. The President couldn't shake down the CEOs of ExxonMobil, Apple, Ford, Dupont, etc. and arrest them on spurious charges like Putin did to Mikhail Khordokovsky. Nor could the US President decree that state governors were now appointed by him instead of being directly elected by each state's citizens. Nor are independent and investigate journalists mysteriously murdered like Anna Politkovskaya in the US.
You would need to completely change US political culture and institutions to do so, and this isn't easy. The US has over 200 years of stable democratic institutions that enjoy widespread legitimacy. They could not be as easily subverted as Putin did Russia's immature, instable democracy of the economically depressed Yeltsin years.
If you are looking for a dominant US politician, see FDR especially in his first two terms. He attempted to pack the Supreme Court and it failed abysmally. That era was the best chance for a Putineque leader to emerge, and none did.
It is certainly possible for corrupt, thuggish leaders to emerge at a more local level, but even here such leaders are much more constrained than Putin ever could be because of the presence of multiple means to indict such people.