This is the fourth part of a series on politics that is geared toward the 2014 elections. The first part was entitled “Democrats Need To Stop Relying On Their Daddies.” The second part was entitled “The Future Of The USA’s Democracy Is At Stake.” The third part was entitled “Americans Are Ignorant About History.”
In my last blog about the upcoming 2014 elections, I noted that Americans have a very myopic view of who the best and worst presidents in American history are. In polls, they frequently rate Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy as among the best presidents ever and Barack Obama as among the worst ever, while ignoring many presidents that historians and scholars rank highly.
In this blog, I have decided to provide Storeboard.com’s readers with a list of the best and worst presidents.
Here are the results of C-Span’s 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey of 64 historians and “professional observers of the presidency.”
Best: 1. Abraham Lincoln 2. George Washington 3. Franklin D. Roosevelt 4. Theodore Roosevelt 5. Harry Truman 6. John F. Kennedy 7. Thomas Jefferson 8. Dwight Eisenhower 9. Woodrow Wilson 10. Ronald Reagan
Worst: 1. James Buchanan 2. Andrew Johnson 3. Franklin Pierce 4. William Henry Harrison 5. Warren Harding 6. George W. Bush 7. John Tyler 8. Herbert Hoover 9. Rutherford Hayes 10. Chester Arthur
Here are the results of the Siena (N.Y.) College Research Institute’s 2010 Survey of 238 presidential scholars.
Best: 1. Franklin D. Roosevelt 2. Theodore Roosevelt 3. Abraham Lincoln 4. George Washington 5. Thomas Jefferson 6. James Madison 7. James Monroe 8. Woodrow Wilson 9. Harry Truman 10. Dwight Eisenhower
Worst: 1. Andrew Johnson 2. James Buchanan 3. Warren Harding 4. Franklin Pierce 5. George W. Bush 6. Millard Fillmore 7. John Tyler 8. Herbert Hoover 9. William Henry Harrison 10. Benjamin Harrison
Here are the ratings of the presidents of the modern era, which is generally considered after World War II:
Harry Truman: Fifth in C-Span survey, ninth in Siena survey. Dwight Eisenhower: Eighth in C-Span survey, 10th in Siena survey. John F. Kennedy: Sixth in C-Span survey, 11th in Siena survey. Lyndon Johnson: Eleventh in C-Span survey, 16th in Siena survey. Richard Nixon: Twenty-seventh in C-Span survey, 30th in Siena survey. Gerald Ford: Twenty-second in C-Span survey, 28th in Siena survey. Jimmy Carter: Twenty-fifth in C-Span survey, 32nd in Siena survey. Ronald Reagan: Tenth in C-Span survey, 18th in Siena survey. George Bush Sr.: Eighteenth in C-Span survey, 22nd in Siena survey. Bill Clinton: Fifteenth in C-Span survey, 13th in Siena survey. George W. Bush: Thirty-sixth in C-Span survey; 39th in Siena survey. Barack Obama: Not ranked in C-Span survey; 15th in Siena survey.
|