Yeah, I know it came out a bit ago, that Presidential ranking story.
Anyway, I’m not going to talk about GWB; too soon.
It seems that Kennedy is higher than I would have thought. Lot of potential for greatness, but the uptick is surprising.
Polk, with his unnecessary war mongering (Mexican War), also seems high.
Jackson’s Trail of Tears alone lowers him.
What caused Grant’s rise? Nothing comes to mind. But at least he wasn’t Hayes, whose end of Reconstruction gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow, and whose downturn is well warranted.
Jimmy Carter seems low, not because I thought he was a great President, but because even his component scores seem low. 14th in honesty?
Really can’t argue the top 4 or the bottom 10 too much.
President’s Name Score Overall Ranking
2009 2000
Abraham Lincoln 902- 1/ 1
George Washington 854- 2/ 3
Franklin D. Roosevelt 837- 3/ 2
Theodore Roosevelt 781- 4/ 4
Harry S. Truman 708- 5/ 5
John F. Kennedy 701- 6/ 8
Thomas Jefferson 698- 7/ 7
Dwight D. Eisenhower 689- 8/ 9
Woodrow Wilson 683- 9/ 6
Ronald Reagan 671- 10/ 11
Lyndon B. Johnson 641- 11/ 10
James K. Polk 606- 12/ 12
Andrew Jackson 606- 13/ 13
James Monroe 605- 14/ 14
Bill Clinton 605- 15/ 21
William McKinley 599- 16/ 15
John Adams 545- 17/ 16
George H. W. Bush 542- 18/ 20
John Quincy Adams 542- 19/ 19
James Madison 535- 20/ 18
Grover Cleveland 523- 21/ 17
Gerald R. Ford 509- 22/ 23
Ulysses S. Grant 490- 23/ 33
William Howard Taft 485- 24/ 24
Jimmy Carter 474- 25/ 22
Calvin Coolidge 469- 26/ 27
Richard M. Nixon 450- 27/ 25
James A. Garfield 445- 28/ 29
Zachary Taylor 443- 29/ 28
Benjamin Harrison 442- 30/ 31
Martin Van Buren 435- 31/ 30
Chester A. Arthur 420- 32/ 32
Rutherford B. Hayes 409- 33/ 26
Herbert Hoover 389- 34/ 34
John Tyler 372- 35/ 36
George W. Bush 362- 36/ NA
Millard Fillmore 351- 37/ 35
Warren G. Harding 327- 38/ 38
William Henry Harrison 324- 39/ 37
Franklin D. Pierce 287- 40/ 39
Andrew Johnson 258- 41/ 40
James Buchanan 227- 42/ 41
ROG
