Chapter 2
IN THIS CHAPTER
Seeing how presidents are evaluated
Reviewing two presidential rankings
This chapter looks at how U.S. presidents are ranked by experts, such as academics. I present one survey: which asked experts, mostly historians, to rank the presidents and then discuss how presidential rankings can fluctuate over time.
There are differences between academic and public survey of our presidents. The public is aware of the founding fathers and major presidents who served during crises, such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This knowledge comes mostly from school and the emphasis that the media places on these important presidents. But when was the last time you saw a special on Rutherford Hayes or read a new biography of Millard Fillmore? On the other hand, you can choose among several movies or books about Franklin Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln.
Polls show that most U.S. citizens know about the presidents in office during their lifetime but don't know much about the presidents of the past, especially the lesser-known executives. Therefore, the public ranks current presidents and famous presidents higher than lesser-known presidents. Academics who study presidents, on the other hand, have a better historical perspective — not too many recent presidents rank high on their scale.
Over time, the standing of a past president may change within the rankings of the U.S. public and academics, providing for renewed interest in his life and actions in office. Some presidents are highly regarded after they leave office, only to end up being considered disappointments in the long run. Andrew Johnson had this fate. Other presidents, such as Harry Truman, may be considered failures shortly after the end of their administrations and then become popular heroes later.
This chapter looks at the academic rankings of U.S. presidents, as well as the issues and characteristics used to evaluate presidents. Chapter 28 presents my personal ranking of the ten best presidents, and Chapter 29 lists my picks for the ten worst presidents in U.S. history.
U.S. presidents are evaluated in many ways. The major characteristics polls use to evaluate the 45 U.S. presidents (actually there were 44 presidents; Grover Cleveland was the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms in office) vary from survey to survey, but the main standards remain fairly consistent.
It is important to keep in mind that times change and presidential rankings reflect this. Early in U.S. history, the United States was isolationist, so foreign policy wasn’t a factor in presidential evaluations. Foreign policy became much more important in the 20th century.
Media scrutiny is a recent phenomenon. During most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the media did not delve into presidents’ lives. It was considered taboo to report on private presidential scandals — the public didn’t know much, if anything, about Franklin Roosevelt’s or Harding’s extramarital affairs. A president’s private indiscretions didn’t factor into how he was judged as president. This code of silence held well into the 20th century — the media didn’t report on John F. Kennedy’s legendary affairs in the White House, even his well-known liaison with movie star Marilyn Monroe.
The Watergate scandal in the 1970s changed things. Suddenly the media believed that it had an obligation to be a watchdog over the presidents. This new role allowed the media not only to check presidents for public mistakes and policy failures, but also to report on private wrongdoings. This role for the media won’t change as long as juicy scandals continue to garner large audiences. Future presidents have to expect to have their lives scrutinized and any minor wrongdoing reported. In the 2000 election, George W. Bush figured that a 20-year-old conviction for drunk driving wouldn’t be a big deal and wouldn’t be reported. Boy, was he wrong. When the story came out days before the election, it almost cost him the presidency.
A president has to make policy, domestic and foreign, for the country. The president outlines his policies in his inaugural address, his annual State of the Union addresses, and especially his budget. The president has a tough battle to conquer: He has to mobilize public opinion to gain the upper hand with Congress.
The president has to be careful when dealing with Congress. If he is pushy and takes a heavy-handed approach, Congress may resent him, and he is not likely to be very successful. Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon found this out the hard way. If a president is willing to lobby Congress and bargain and deal with its members, he can be very successful. George H. W. Bush saw most of his legislation pass, even though the opposition, Democrats, controlled both houses of Congress.
Leadership skills are necessary for the president to succeed. The more skills a president possesses, the more likely Congress will pass his policies. This is one way that a president is judged and evaluated. The more his policies get passed, the higher his ranking.
In modern times, a president’s legislation has been judged according to the impact his policies have on social equality in U.S. society. Policies that benefit minorities and the poor enhance a president’s ranking in the polls.
The U.S. public looks to the president as its political and economic leader. He is held responsible for the political and economic climate, whether times are good or bad. A successful president has to have a program ready to stimulate the economy if necessary, and he has to be able to pass it. If he fails, he will not win reelection. Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush are recent presidents who lost their bids for reelection due to economic decline. At the same time, a booming economy can get a president reelected even if he is facing personal scandals, as Bill Clinton demonstrated in 1996.
Crisis management also refers to international crises. The way a president reacts to major foreign crises, such as a war or a terrorist attack, greatly impacts his standing with the public and his rankings in the polls. Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, two presidents who always rank in the top five, rank high mainly because of their crisis-management skills. Lincoln reacted forcefully during the Civil War and kept the Union intact. Franklin Roosevelt guided the United States through World War II and turned the country into a superpower.
Lyndon Johnson, on the other hand, couldn’t deal with the conflict in Vietnam. This inability lowers his ranking, despite his major domestic accomplishments. More recently, President George W. Bush, who was not doing well in the polls as late as August 2001, turned himself into a great crisis manager after the terrorist attacks in September 2001. His handling of the situation brought new life to his presidency.
Presidents are also measured by the people they appoint to public office. This area of evaluation includes appointments to the Supreme Court and the presidential cabinet.
Presidents Harding and Grant destroyed their presidencies with inept, corrupt appointments, and their rankings reflect this. Appointing good, skilled people reflects positively on a president. George C. Marshall and Henry Kissinger, both Secretaries of State, reflected positively on the presidents who appointed them, increasing Truman’s and Nixon’s standings, respectively.
Today, diversity has become an issue. Presidential appointments should reflect the ethnic composition of the country. The more minorities, including women, a president appoints to high-level positions, the higher his ranking. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and especially Barack Obama have done well in this area, with their cabinets containing a fair amount of minorities. President Trump so far has scored very low in this area.
Major foreign policy success can make up for domestic failure. President Nixon ranks low on many lists, but he had major accomplishments in the area of foreign policy. These accomplishments elevate him into the middle of the presidential pack. President George H. W. Bush was a great foreign policy president: During his term, the Soviet Union collapsed, the Gulf War was won, and major arms control took place. These accomplishments push him into the top 20 of U.S. presidents.
Respect from foreign nations is very important. President Nixon was widely respected by foreign nations. After his resignation, he continued to be treated as a successful president by most of the world, which led to a rise in his rankings.
The attributes of character and integrity are important when judging presidents. A president who promotes corruption, lies to the public, or is involved in scandals will obviously be ranked lower than an honest president.
President Nixon single-handedly destroyed his presidency and his place in history with the Watergate scandal. President Clinton undermined a successful presidency with many personal scandals, including lying to the public. President Harding destroyed what was left of his presidency with continuous political scandals, such as the Teapot Dome Scandal.
At the same time, a president who wasn’t very successful in office, such as Jimmy Carter, can restore his reputation and rise in the rankings for being a true humanitarian and an honest person. James Polk made it into my top ten list of presidents in this book for being an honest, dedicated individual. He worked so hard that it cost him his life. There were no scandals during his presidency, and he even kept his campaign promise not to run for reelection.
The ability to persuade the public to his point of view is one of the most powerful weapons a president possesses. It’s also one he most needs to succeed. How a president uses this power, and how successful he is with it, impacts his standing in the ranks of presidents. Some of the masters of public persuasion are
Ronald Reagan, who is known as the “Great Communicator” because he possessed a special ability to connect with the U.S. public.
The public loved Reagan and the way he dealt with the average person. This adoration translated into support for his policies. Congress enacted a large part of Reagan’s agenda because the public backed him — not necessarily because Congress agreed with him and his proposals.
Other presidents haven’t fared as well. Jimmy Carter had a tough time connecting with the public. For this reason, much of his presidential agenda never made it through Congress, even though his own party controlled Congress. Richard Nixon failed in similar fashion. He couldn’t relate to the public. By the time the Watergate scandal came around, it was too late to gather public support for his presidency.
Some presidents come into office without a vision of what they want to accomplish as president: This usually results in a failed presidency. Without a master plan, a president is at the mercy of Congress, which can then take over and make policy for the country.
The more successful presidents have a vision. They want to use the office of president to change the United States. Franklin Roosevelt wanted to bring about changes to protect the average citizen from the brutal effects of the Great Depression. Reagan wanted to restore the United States to greatness and decrease the size of the federal government. With a vision to guide them, presidents tend to be active, as they try to implement their agenda. Even if they’re not successful, they still get credit for having a vision.
A president without a vision accomplishes nothing, because there is nothing he wants to accomplish. Without a vision, a presidency results in failure.
The most successful presidents in U.S. history all had a vision of how they wanted the country to look and act. By the time they served out their terms, they had made a difference and changed the United States according to their plan.
One of the best academic evaluations of U.S. presidents was released in 2017. C-SPAN (National Cable Satellite Corporation), a network created to show public affairs programming, conducted a survey of 91 historians and other experts on the presidency in the United States and asked them to rank the presidents. Sadly, the network has discontinued its polls on the American public’s ranking of U.S. presidents. Public opinion polls ranking all of our presidents have become rare; they are expensive and there is not much demand for them. Most presidential polls today only contain the post–WWII presidents.
I present the CSPAN survey in Table 2-1. (President Donald J. Trump is not ranked because his presidency is ongoing at this time.)
TABLE 2-1 Presidential Rankings
President's Name |
2017 |
1 |
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2 |
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3 |
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4 |
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5 |
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6 |
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7 |
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8 |
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9 |
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10 |
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11 |
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12 |
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13 |
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14 |
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15 |
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16 |
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17 |
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18 |
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19 |
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20 |
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21 |
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22 |
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23 |
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24 |
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25 |
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26 |
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27 |
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28 |
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29 |
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30 |
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31 |
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32 |
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33 |
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34 |
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35 |
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36 |
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37 |
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38 |
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39 |
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40 |
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41 |
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42 |
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43 |
Source: CSPAN 2017 Poll
In the C-SPAN survey, the 43 U.S. presidents were ranked on ten different characteristics and then put in order. The ten criteria included public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with congress, vision/setting agenda, pursued justice for all, and performance within contexts of times.
To this day, the C-SPAN surveys are the most comprehensive surveys available to the public. You can find more information on the website at www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2017/?page=overall
.
Experts, such as academics, rank presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson higher than the public for their accomplishments in domestic policy. There is also a political bias among academics. Academics tend to be more liberal than the general populace, so they tend to rate liberal presidents higher than the public does.
The public doesn’t have this ideological bias. The public considers Ronald Reagan one of the top ten presidents. They remember Reagan fondly, and they really don’t care about the Iran-Contra scandal, which academics hold against him. The public also ranks George H. W. Bush and his son George W. Bush higher than academics do.
It is interesting to observe that Richard Nixon doesn’t make the five worst presidents anymore. Right after the Watergate scandal, he was considered one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. But he was able to regain some of his stature in the last two decades of his life, mostly due to his foreign policy accomplishments. (See Chapter 21 for coverage of President Nixon.)
Presidential rankings change over time. This fluctuation especially affects recent presidents. It takes time to evaluate a presidency and to see the long-term impact of a president’s accomplishments or failures. Actions that may have been considered a big mistake at the time can turn out to be a stroke of genius decades later. At the same time, a courageous move may turn into a disastrous mistake when viewed with the benefit of hindsight. So, you can expect the more recent presidents to move up and down the rankings ladder in years to come. Most of the earlier presidents, on the other hand, are unlikely to improve or worsen in the standings.
When Harry Truman left office, many considered his presidency a failure. Contemporaneous observers believed that he was one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. He wasn’t able to win the war in Korea, and his civil rights and social programs were stalled in Congress.
Decades later, the perception of Truman changed. People looked at Truman’s foreign policy and recognized what he accomplished. Truman implemented the policy of containing communism, not allowing any more European countries to go communist: The Truman Doctrine, providing aid to countries fighting communist uprisings, saved Greece and Turkey from communism, and the Marshall Plan, providing economic aid to Europe, restored European economies and prevented communist parties from coming to power in Europe after World War II.
Truman also faced the toughest decision a person could make: Should he drop nuclear bombs on Japan? Truman did what he thought was best for the country. He wanted to end World War II as quickly as possible to save U.S. lives. He did this by having U.S. bombers drop atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Truman also integrated the armed forces by executive order. He could have accomplished even more if he hadn’t faced a hostile Congress.
Today Truman is considered a great president, consistently ranking in the top ten in academic surveys. (For in-depth coverage of Truman, turn to Chapter 17.)
When Eisenhower left office, his presidency was considered boring and bland. People thought he hadn’t done much. Decades later, people looked at his presidency differently — not doing much might be a good thing. Today, surveys show that President Eisenhower is considered one of the best U.S presidents, consistently making the top ten lists of presidential rankings.
Eisenhower ended the war in Korea and kept peace around the world. As Eisenhower proudly proclaimed, communism didn’t gain an inch of territory during his tenure, and he accomplished this without shedding any U.S. blood. Not bad for a quiet, boring president.
At home, the economy was booming. Eisenhower built the U.S. interstate system and sponsored civil rights legislation. He stood up to the Southern states and enforced the Supreme Court’s decision to integrate U.S. public schools. Eisenhower proved that you don’t have to be a flamboyant, controversial individual to be a great president. Chapter 18 gives you more reasons to like Ike.
Many, especially in the South, admired Andrew Johnson when he left office. He stood up to a Republican Congress that was trying to punish the former Confederate states. People thought that he was a true believer in states’ rights. They also believed that he adhered to the Constitution during his short-lived presidency.
Today, Johnson is considered a horrible human being whose presidency was a massive failure. Johnson was a stubborn individual, unwilling to compromise on any issue. He tried to circumvent Congress and bring the Southern states back into the Union by himself. He was a blatant racist who didn’t care at all about former slaves. He even vetoed the 13th Amendment, which made former slaves U.S. citizens. Had it been up to him, African Americans would have never had any political rights.
Johnson truly deserves to be listed among the worst presidents in U.S. history, but it took time to recognize this.