Ranking Presidents

[Mavdog]

With all the seemingly incessant coverage of Reagan this past few days, the question of where the Presidents rank in regard to their legacy. Here's a couple of rankings to chew over:

WSJ
RANK NAME MEAN
GREAT
1 George Washington 4.92
2 Abraham Lincoln 4.87
3 Franklin Roosevelt 4.67
NEAR GREAT
4 Thomas Jefferson 4.25
5 Theodore Roosevelt 4.22
6 Andrew Jackson 3.99
7 Harry Truman 3.95
8 Ronald Reagan 3.81
9 Dwight Eisenhower 3.71
10 James Polk 3.70
11 Woodrow Wilson 3.68
ABOVE AVERAGE
12 Grover Cleveland 3.36
13 John Adams 3.36
14 William McKinley 3.33
15 James Madison 3.29
16 James Monroe 3.27
17 Lyndon Johnson 3.21
18 John Kennedy 3.17
AVERAGE
19 William Taft 3.00
20 John Quincy Adams 2.93
21 George Bush 2.92
22 Rutherford Hayes 2.79
23 Martin Van Buren 2.77
24 William Clinton 2.77
25 Calvin Coolidge 2.71
26 Chester Arthur 2.71
BELOW AVERAGE
27 Benjamin Harrison 2.62
28 Gerald Ford 2.59
29 Herbert Hoover 2.53
30 Jimmy Carter 2.47
31 Zachary Taylor 2.40
32 Ulysses Grant 2.28
33 Richard Nixon 2.22
34 John Tyler 2.03
35 Millard Fillmore 1.91
FAILURE
36 Andrew Johnson 1.65
37 Franklin Pierce 1.58
38 Warren Harding 1.58
39 James Buchanan 1.33
The number listed above is the mean score of all the scholars' rating of each president. On this scale, five is the highest possible score.

William Henry Harrison was president for a mere 30 days and James Garfield served for only six months. Many of our scholars thought their early deaths in office made it too difficult to evaluate them, so they are not included in this survey.


Here's CSPAN's:
-SPAN Survey
of Presidential Leadership


Historian Survey Results Category:
Total Score/Overall Ranking


President's Name Final Score Overall Ranking
Abraham Lincoln 900 1
Franklin Delano Roosevelt 876 2
George Washington 842 3
Theodore Roosevelt 810 4
Harry S. Truman 753 5
Woodrow Wilson 723 6
Thomas Jefferson 711 7
John F. Kennedy 704 8
Dwight D. Eisenhower 699 9
Lyndon Baines Johnson 655 10
Ronald Reagan 634 11
James K. Polk 632 12
Andrew Jackson 632 13
James Monroe 602 14
William McKinley 601 15
John Adams 598 16
Grover Cleveland 576 17
James Madison 567 18
John Quincy Adams 564 19
George Bush 548 20
Bill Clinton 539 21
Jimmy Carter 518 22
Gerald Ford 495 23
William Howard Taft 491 24
Richard Nixon 477 25
Rutherford B. Hayes 477 26
Calvin Coolidge 451 27
Zachary Taylor 447 28
James Garfield 444 29
Martin Van Buren 429 30
Benjamin Harrison 426 31
Chester Arthur 423 32
Ulysses S. Grant 403 33
Herbert Hoover 400 34
Millard Fillmore 395 35
John Tyler 369 36
William Henry Harrison 329 37
Warren G. Harding 326 38
Franklin Pierce 286 39
Andrew Johnson 280 40
James Buchanan 259 41

Let's discuss......

[madape]

We should dismiss the CNN rankings for the simple fact that they put LBJ ahead of Reagan. LBJ in the top ten? Get the hell out of here.

The first list looks great.

[Mavdog]

LBJ did push through the civil rights act, a watershed event in our nation's desire for true equality.

[dude1394]

I'm going mad. I read something today about the number of democracies that are in existence now versus when reagan took office. It was staggering. The number was almost a billion people living in democracy since reagans first term. But I CAN'T find it.

[bcrav4]

Exactly, HOW is Bush rated Higher than Clinton. Clinton was and always will be the man!

[dude1394]

Actually clinton will quickly fall into the below average as time goes on. About the only redeeming characteristic of his presidency that will be above Bush I is that he served two terms.

[madape]

Interesting thought on this from James Tarantino of the WSJ:

Both Lincoln and FDR were preceded by a series of presidents who today are held in low esteem: Zachary Taylor (who ranks 31st), Millard Fillmore (35th), Franklin Pierce (37th) and James Buchanan (39th); and Warren Harding (37th, tied with Pierce), Calvin Coolidge (25th) and Herbert Hoover (29th). The former group allowed the issue of slavery to fester until it nearly destroyed the nation; the latter, fairly or not, are blamed for the Depression.

My guess is that while the economic boom of the late 90s will certainly help Clinton's legacy, he will be hurt by a vaccuous foreign policy that fostered the rise of the global islamic terror movement. History will treat G.W.Bush as a bold leader who confronted global terror, and who's groundbreaking pre-emptive policy eventually put an end to this country's greatest post cold-war threat. Those that came before him (Clinton George H.W. Bush), will be seen as leaders who allowed the problem to escalate, and thus will be viewed by historians as below average presidents.

[LRB]

Originally posted by: bcrav4
Exactly, HOW is Bush rated Higher than Clinton. Clinton was and always will be the man!

Yes Clinton will always be the man who screwed the nation and most of the intern in the White House. As time goes by, Clinton will only be esteemed less and less.

[sike]

Originally posted by: bcrav4
Exactly, HOW is Bush rated Higher than Clinton. Clinton was and always will be the man!

this made me laugh...then smile....then furrow my brow.....then frown.....then i found myself weeping on the floor...regreting the decisions I made while a wide eyed intern while serving in the Clinton white house…… [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[reeds]

Ya, had Clinton kept it in his pants, he would be ranked much much higher....above averge

[Murphy3]

Originally posted by: reeds
Ya, had Clinton kept it in his pants, he would be ranked much much higher....above averge

I can agree with that. Although I'm not a liberal by any means, Clinton probably belongs higher up the list...without a doubt.

[dude1394]

About the only eduring thing that clinton did was sine welfare reform. I guess I could give him bosnia (but since his own party refuses to see the hypocrisy of their griping about unilateralism in iraq) to heck with that.

[reeds]

How bout this...

Under President Clinton's leadership, almost 6 million new jobs were created in the first two years of his Administration -- an average of 250,000 new jobs every month.

In 1994, the economy had the lowest combination of unemployment and inflation in 25 years.

As part of the 1993 Economic Plan, President Clinton cut taxes on 15 million low-income families and made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses, while raising taxes on just 1.2 percent of the wealthiest taxpayers.

President Clinton signed into law the largest deficit reduction plan in history, resulting in over $600 billion in deficit reduction. The deficit is going down for 3 years in a row for the first time since Harry Truman was president.

The President signed into law the Brady Bill, which imposes a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases so that background checks can be done to help keep handguns away from criminals.

The President's Crime Bill will put 100,000 new police officers on the street. More than 1,200 communities have already received grants to hire 27,000 additional officers.

The Crime Bill also punishes criminals by expanding the number of offenses eligible for the death penalty and implementing the "three-strikes-and-you're-out" provision.

And, the Bill banned the manufacture of 19 specific types of deadly assault weapons, while simultaneously protecting hunters' rights by exempting over 650 hunting rifles.



President Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act. The law, which covers over 42 million Americans, offers workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-guaranteed leave for child birth, adoption, or personal or family illness.

President Clinton expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit to cut the taxes of 15 million working families with incomes of $27,000 or less.

President Clinton granted waivers to 25 states -- half the nation -- providing for comprehensive welfare reform demonstrations.

President Clinton ordered the U.S. Justice Department to conduct the first-ever crackdown on deadbeat parents who refuse to accept financial responsibility for their own children.

Signed an Executive Order cracking down on federal employees who owe child support..


YES- he was very UNDERRATED....if he werent so horny- he may crack the top 15

[dude1394]

Reeds... .There is nothing in your list that will will endure history. Clinton will be known as a caretaker president. Again welfare reform and bosnia(I forgot about this) are about it. Everything else was just riding herd on a booming economy.

Clinton definitely was president during a very impressive economic boom. I would imagine that you couldn't (I know I can't) elaborate on the economic policies that he passed that caused it to occur.