Much has been done over the years to answer the question--"Who are the best and worst presidents of all time?" Here is our list below, with an explanation link to follow. Comment and tell us what you think! What does your "Top 42" look like?
"Legendary"
1) Franklin Roosevelt 2) Abraham Lincoln 3) George Washington
"Outstanding"
4) Thomas Jefferson 5) Dwight Eisenhower 6) Theodore Roosevelt
7) Woodrow Wilson 8) Harry Truman 9) John Kennedy
"Above Average"
10) John Adams 11) James Monroe 12) William McKinley
13) James Polk 14) James Madison 15) Ronald Reagan
16) Bill Clinton 17) Lyndon Johnson 18) John Quincy Adams
"Average"
19) Gerald Ford 20) Grover Cleveland 21) George H.W. Bush
22) William Howard Taft 23) Richard Nixon
"Below Average"
24) Andrew Jackson 25) Rutherford Hayes 26) Calvin Coolidge 27) Jimmy Carter
28) Martin Van Buren 29) Ulysses Grant 30) Chester Arthur 31) Zachary Taylor
32) Benjamin Harrison
"Regrettable"
33) George W. Bush 34) Herbert Hoover 35) John Tyler 36) Franklin Pierce
37) James Garfield 38) Warren Harding 39) James Buchanan
40) William Henry Harrison 41) Andrew Johnson 42) Millard Fillmore
Want our jusification for all this?
We used the following ratings in our studies: Vision, Integrity, Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, Speaking Ability, Team-Building, Intelligence, Political Skill, Wall Street Journal Public Opinion Poll 2005, and Wikipedia Poll 2006.
(We'll upload our database soon!)
Here are some links where you can study more about presidential popularity:
American Presidents
The Center for the Study of the Presidency
Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies--Grand Valley State University
Wall Street Journal Survery on Presidents
Presidents USA
Historical Rankings of United States Presidents
Quotes from our Top 10 Presidents
"Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." F. Roosevelt
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." A. Lincoln
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." G. Washington
"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." D. Eisenhower
"When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred." T. Jefferson
"Speak softly and carry a big stick." T. Roosevelt
"You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American." W. Wilson
"My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." J. Kennedy
"The buck stops here." H. Truman
"A free, virtuous, and enlightened people must know full well the great principles and causes upon which their happiness depends." J. Monroe
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Ranking the Presidents
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m1garand 17 hours ago
I want to beat my head against my keyboard every time I see one of these polls. It's like if a President guts the Constitution and starts unnecessary wars then you get ranked higher. From a pro-freedom or a Constitutionalist point of view you should flip these results upside down. FDR as the greatest and legendary. WTF for. Turning the deflation of the Federal Reserve into the Great Depression or spreading Communism to half the world. It makes me sick that Americans continue to worship such a despicable tyrant.
caponumen on 08/05/2007
Blah!
Based on revisionist history and academic bias.
m1garand 2 hours ago
Greatest Presidents:
1.Martin Van Buren as number 1. He faced an economic contraction far worse than Hoover and FDR but he promoted a policy of Laisse Fair and unemployment never went over 6%.
2. Grover Cleveland- The last great Constitutionalist.
3. George Washington
4. Warren Harding-He faced a similar economic contraction after the World War 1 inflation, but cut taxes and spending and the economy recovered quickly. The last President to reduce the size of the government. He was prone to personal scandals (he had an illegimate child) so you debate this one.
5. Calvin Coolidge- for not causing too much harm.
Worst Presidents (starting from the worst)
1. Woodrow Wilson-Under him the 16th, 17th, and 18th ammendments were passed which did great harm to the Constitution. He help bring back the Federal Reserve which would later be responsible for the Great Depression. His biggest disaster was entering the US into World War 1. This led to the Treaty of Versailles which would latter result in the rise of Nazi Germany and World War 2.
2. FDR-For abolishing our Constitution and reasons given above.
3. Lincoln- the father of big government. For destroying the idea held by virtually all of the Founding Fathers, that states have the Constitutional authority to secede from the Union.
4. Lyndon Johnson- For expanding the welfare state and creating a generation government dependents. And of course for escalating the Vietnam War.
5. Harry Truman-The first to start an unconstitutional war in Korea. Promoted Operation Keelhaul which led to the mass genocide of many Russian dissidents.
Some of the "Greatest Presidents" I guess could be debated (especially number 4 and 5). I pretty much stand by the "Worse Presidents"
AmericanLeaders 5 hours ago
m1, if you don't mind my asking, who would you consider as your Top 5 presidents? And then, your bottom 5? Those are interesting points you bring up.
AmericanLeaders on 08/05/2007
Nah.
We took into account the "academic" factors such as policy and intelligence, but also took into account morals and other "personable" traits such as integrity and ability to communicate. We also took into account a couple of public opinion polls--one from '06 and another that was based on presidents before W Bush.
Is it objective? Absolutely! Comment on what you would like to see different. We're anxious to hear!
I am amazed at the amazingly low placement of Ronald Reagan. How, on earth, does he rank only one above Bill Clinton, who was a moron from Arkansas who got lucky with the dot-com boom.
Very arrogant of you to include George W. Bush in this. Unfair, really, that he still has over 16 months left in his presidency. He led our country through 9/11 and for that, it is incredibly wrong to label him as "regrettable."
We were also rather amazed--when we put this list together--of the placement of many presidents, such as the relatively high ranking of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.
However, you should understand that this isn't just simply an arbitrary "list" of who we like and don't like--very far from it. We ranked each president using a 1-42 scale in each of the following topics: Vision, Integrity, Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, Speaking Ability, Team-Building, Intelligence, and Political Skill. We even threw in 2 public opinion polls, because we believe that the public is as good a means as any to the success and failure of presidents--since the president exists to serve the people.
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both, for example, ranked low on integrity--for Iran-Contra and Monica Lewinsky, respectively. Reagan ranked high in vision and foreign policy, while Clinton ranked high on domestic policy and intelligence (Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar).
Bush ranked high in vision, and despite the fact that he is currently being cited for war crimes by many individuals, he was ranked fairly decent in integrity. He ranked low in a few areas, just by virtue of the fact that he is being compared to the best of our nation's best--in speaking ability, intelligence, and relatively low in political ability. This is not to say he is stupid or possesses no political ability--but that, compared to other presidents, he hasn't faired as well. We are not giving up on a current, sitting President, but instead are merely critiquing him against other presidents--a very relevant task for any sitting president.
Thanks for your comments! I hope you'll keep more coming!!
-ALO
PS--we will put a link to our site, where we rank each president in each list, as soon as it becomes available. Then you can comment on that, as well!
so all you self rightous right wing dittoheads are appalled at your favorite presidents' low rankings ? Bush 2 is your champion and look what a stellar job he's done so far !!!
How did the present Bush get ranked higher than #42?
I'm not sure how useful an opinion poll of the general public would be in determining the rankings of presidents. A poll of scholars perhaps would be okay.
The problem that I see is that the average person has only lived through a handful of presidents. Even if we can assume (probably optimistically) that the average person has a good knowledge of what presidents did during the person's lifetime, the average person's perspective of a historical president is probably limited. They have vague recollections of school texts, some TV shows, movies, and maybe some news articles. So an opinion poll might tell us what the public perception of a president is, but that might not be much of an indicator of how effective a leader that president really was.
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