The Greatest Presidents
Background
The Fall 1985 issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly, published by the Center for the Study of the Presidency, had an article called, "Rating Presidents and Diplomats in Chief." In this article, Presidents are assessed.
In 1948, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. polled fifty-five prominent scholars in American history and government, and again in 1962 he asked seventy-five to rank Presidents within five categories - as great, near great, average, below average and failure. Another poll, conducted among nearly 850 members of the United States Historical Society in 1977, asked respondents to name the ten greatest Presidents. There were three other group polls in 1970, 1981, and 1982, and twelve more individual assessments discussed in that article. So, out of eighteen lists, the results were:
Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt were on all 18 lists. Wilson and Jefferson were on 17 lists. Then Truman on 9, Polk on 7, John Adams on 6, Grover Cleveland on 5 and Kennedy on 2.
In 1956, the popular poll results were: Franklin Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington, Eisenhower, Truman, Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Jefferson.
In 1976, popular poll results were: Kennedy, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Washington, Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Jefferson, Wilson and Nixon.
Nowhere in that article were the election results, or voters’ opinions, considered.
The Electoral College
The Electoral College vote is the only
measure by which all Presidents can be compared, but even that is flawed
because electors had two votes until the 12th Amendment was ratified
in 1804. Furthermore, some of the
electors were chosen by state legislatures instead of voters until 1836, with
the exception of South Carolina that did not choose its electors by popular
vote until after the Civil War in 1860.
The Second Term
Not surprisingly, the highest percentage of Electoral votes were won by Presidents winning re-election: Roosevelt's second term - 98.49%; Monroe's second term - 98.3%; Washington's second term - 97.77%; Reagan's second term - 97.58%; Nixon's second term - 96.65%; Washington's first term - 94.52%; and Jefferson's second term - 92.05%. Then Reagan's first term, Lincoln's second term, and so on.
Conclusion,
our greatest Presidents are the two-term Presidents. There have been seventeen two-term
Presidents, twenty-two one-term Presidents, five Presidents who were never
elected, and two people who were elected president but were never allowed to
take office (Tilden and Gore).
Popular Vote
When popular
vote is considered, the two-term presidents still remain our greatest
presidents, although the order in the top tier moves around somewhat. The
significance of popular vote is still unclear. Lyndon Johnson and Richard
Nixon, two of the biggest winners in American history, were both forced from
office. Interestingly, the first president to win with more than 60% of the
popular vote was Warren G. Harding in 1920, the first election in which women
had the right to vote. So, the thought experiment is this, how did the men know
for 131 years, not to give any president more than 60% of the vote until women
won the franchise? Of course, they could not know. But the question of how men “knew”
not to give any candidate 60% until their better halves were enfranchised needs
to be explored.
The Greatest Presidents
The Institute of Election Analysis has devised a ranking that includes both Electoral and popular vote ever won by a candidate. Multiplying the two percentages together yields an election factor. For example, if a candidate wins 50% of the Electoral vote and 50% of the popular vote, .50 X .50 = .25 But if that candidate wins reelection by 50% electoral and 50%, then their total lifetime Electoral vote is 100% and total lifetime popular vote is 100%, so their factor is now 1. This election factor is magnified by candidates who win votes in more than one election. So, all the two-term presidents except for the Bush fils, exceed 1.[1]
The list of Presidents and their factors are:
|
Rank |
President |
Factor |
|
1. |
Franklin Roosevelt |
7.9949 |
|
2. |
George Washington |
3.98 |
|
3. |
Thomas Jefferson |
3.5606 |
|
4. |
Richard Nixon |
2.969 |
|
5. |
Andrew Jackson |
2.72 |
|
6. |
James Monroe |
2.52 |
|
7. |
Grover Cleveland |
2.2735 |
|
8. |
Ronald Reagan |
2.0642 |
|
9. |
Dwight D. Eisenhower |
1.904 |
|
10. |
Ulysses S. Grant |
1.5875 |
|
11. |
James Madison |
1.473 |
|
12. |
Barack Hussein Obama |
1.3468 |
|
13. |
William McKinley |
1.2929 |
|
14. |
William J. Clinton |
1.2928 |
|
15. |
Woodrow Wilson |
1.2219 |
|
16. |
Abraham Lincoln |
1.213 |
|
17. |
Herbert Hoover |
1.06 |
|
18. |
George H. W. Bush |
.9993 |
|
19. |
George W. Bush |
.9759 |
|
20. |
William Henry Harrison |
.9335 |
|
21. |
John Adams |
.9062 |
|
22. |
Martin Van Buren |
.8426 |
|
23. |
Theodore Roosevelt |
.8380 |
|
24. |
Benjamin Harrison |
.8283 |
|
25. |
James Earl Carter |
.6158 |
|
26. |
William Howard Taft |
.5755 |
|
27. |
Lyndon Baines Johnson |
.5515 |
|
28. |
John Quincy Adams |
.464 |
|
29. |
Warren G. Harding |
.4587 |
|
30. |
Franklin Pierce |
.4362 |
|
31. |
Calvin Coolidge |
.3338 |
|
32. |
James K. Polk |
.3062 |
|
33. |
Harry Truman |
.2825 |
|
34. |
John F. Kennedy |
.2805 |
|
35. |
James Garfield |
.2799 |
|
36. |
James Buchanan |
.2661 |
|
37. |
Zachary Taylor |
.2652 |
|
38. |
Donald J. Trump |
.2599 |
|
39. |
Rutherford B. Hayes |
.2402 |
|
40. |
Gerald Ford |
.2148 |
|
41. |
Millard Fillmore |
.0058 |
|
42. |
Andrew Johnson |
H,S,G,VP |
|
43. |
John Tyler |
H,S,G,VP |
|
44. |
Chester A. Arthur |
VP |
Elected Offices: H= U.S. House, S= U.S. Senate, G=Governor, VP=Vice-President
Proof That This Election Analysis has Merit
Does this ranking of the Presidents ring true? Some might argue that Lincoln is too low, or Clinton is too high. Remember, these 44 people all reached the top of their profession, so they are all huge successes by any normal standard.
On the other end of the scale, look at the five presidents who were
never elected: John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Millard Fillmore, Chester A. Arthur
and Gerald Ford. What a collection of non-entities, especially compared
with FDR, Washington, Monroe, and Ike. The ranking of those never elected is
based on their performance with the voters prior to becoming president. (A special note of thanks is due to Ivan
Trotsky of Takoma Park, Maryland; for his assistance
in ranking the non-elected presidents.)
Two
presidents who ranked in the top ten with the voters, James Monroe and Ulysses
Grant, did not appear on any of the expert lists. Why is Monroe so high on the list? His
name is still attached to our foreign policy in Central and South America - the
Monroe Doctrine. And Grant, when his administration was riddled with
corruption? According to Geoffrey Perret's biography
of Ulysses S. Grant, Grant virtually invented the modern army organization.
This
proves that being elected President is the source of much of the office's
power. Electoral votes are the most important measure, although popular vote is
a secondary standard. When selecting the most powerful person in the world,
having two or more standards by which to judge is a safeguard. So, George W. Bush, who lost the 2000
election but was awarded the office by clerical error, was responsible for the
United States being attacked from abroad for the first time since 1812,
launched two disastrous wars, and plunged the world into the worst economic
crisis in seventy years. These events
followed directly from the Supreme Court picking the loser in the presidential
race. The Electoral College was not the problem in the 2000 election, it was
the solution; but Al Gore was too much of a coward, or an idiot, to fight for
his victory with all the tools available.
Similarly, Hillary Clinton who defeated Donald Trump by almost 3 million votes, could at least have made an attempt to persuade Trump’s
electors to support the winner of the popular vote. Ignorance of civics is
widespread. According to a 2014 poll conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy
Center of the University of Pennsylvania, one-third of adults could name all
three branches of government, but another third could not name a single
one. Even if Gore and Clinton had lost in
their attempt to get the electors to choose the highest vote getter in the
election, the exercise would have been a high profile, badly needed civic
lesson. The current debate on the
College is based on woefully few facts and little understanding of its multifarious
purposes. (See Trump’s Historic
Victory above.)
[1] George W. Bush’s factor excludes Florida in 2000 which he lost with the voters, but won by using the Supreme Court to stop the count, and by his brother, the Governor, to exercise his authority to request a recount in a close election. With Florida included, Bush’s factor is 1.0202, making him still the only two term president to do worse than a one term president, Herbert Hoover.