Talk Elections

This has probably been up before... but anyway.

I say John F. Kennedy.

Reagan :P

Well, with all that cant about him being one of America's greatest presidents ever, you're probably right.

Ronald Reagan.

I'd say he isn't even among the 15 greatest, but considering that he only had barely three years in office, he did good.

Kennedy is highest ranked of the ones who never served a full term.

Ronald W. Reagan would be close...  but only because of his middle name.  The most overrated and indeed the worst president the United States has ever has was Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson, Truman or Andrew Jackson

Franklin Roosevelt

People tend to ignore that his heavy taxation of the rich actually helped prolong the Depression.

Reagan.

I feel that Truman is rated about right. FDR is rated well in my opinion too. He wasn't the best, but he wasn't the worst. FDR did alot for this country. And if you disagree with that, at least he gave us hope.

ANDREW JACKSON!!!

Right now it's Reagan by a landslide, but history will probably correct this in time. Eisenhower is getting to be pretty overrated too.

bill clinton and ronald reagan

-Wilson
-Eisenhower
-JFK
-Reagan

Reagan was definately the most overrated. This is the same man who told schools to give kids ketchup, because he said it would provide the veggie part of the "Balanced" school lunch. That sounds really redundant.

Correct answer: Andrew Jackson.  Our worst President is often regarded as top 10 because he hated the rich.  Never mind that his policies hurt the poor more than the rich, his hatred endears him to leftist historians.  JFK is second most overrated.  He is often rated too high by the public, but he actually was a decent PResident, as opposed to Jackson who was not.


In 500 years, what will matter more: Ketchup as a vegetable or the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact?

In 500 years, I'll be dead. I guess it really wouldn't matter. I just find Reagan's ignorance about things like that overwhelming. The same as I found Jimmy Carter to be utterly unfit to be President. I think though, by the time Reagn was President, the people were kidding themselves if they thought the Soviets wouldn't collapse soon.

I will always believe that SDI was not so much a new weapon, but a program to bankrupt the USSR. Smart move for Reagan. He was smart when it came to winning the Cold War.

On January 20th, 1981, the USSR was more powerful than the US.

Hah!

john ford you know that is just as incorrect as the 'missle gap' was.

We tend to forget Ander Jackson saved the Union from an early Civil War. He stared down Vice President Calhoun, the "nulification" man, and told him, "Our Union, it must be preserved."  He threatened hangings to any Congressman who preached sessesion on the floors of Congress.

Jackson saved the Union.

Most overrated without a doubt is JFK. I always find someone who says JFK is their favorite President and then when I ask what they love about him or what he did to think he was great, they can never answer.

Now I like that JFK cut taxes and solved the Cuban Missile crisis (I think Nixon could have provided much stronger leadership during that time) but there were other elements of his Presidency that were not successful at all. I still don't understand why people put him as one of the best and one of their favorite Presidents.

Postponed it till the South had no chance of winning it, is more like. :)

The South had more chance of winning it in the 1860's due to them having more industry than in the 1830's.

Yes, but the gap also got bigger.
More to the point, the North's big advantage in population developed after that time, and o/c, there were no railroads in 1830, which means it would have been far more difficult to move men to the battlefields. There were also improvements in weapon technology, though these were dwarved by those in the war itself.
A civil war in 1830 would have been more like 1812 than 1865.
Of course there wasn't as much support for secession in 1830 as there was in 1860 - simply because the "Domestic Institutions" were not under threat from Democracy. Yet. Otherwise, Jackson wouldn't have dared use the language he did. In fact, otherwise he'd more likely than not have supported secession. He was a large slaveholder from a state that did secede, after all.

Durring the Taylor Administration sesession began to be really thought of as an alternative for the South.

One thing I will say for Jackson is he wanted to preserve the union.

Actually, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a serious military analysis that shows that had the US and USSR come to blows in W. Europe that we'd have won.  The Soviets had vastly superior armor and in far greater numbers to their NATO counterparts.  The Soviets were closer to the field of battle that their US counterparts.  NATO did not have nearly as compatible of weapon systems as the USSR.

I also think you'd be hard pressed to demonstrate that the US had superior nuclear capabilities in 1981.  The Soviets had more warheads and, unlike the US, their missiles were usually mobile negating any possible counterforce capability the US might have otherwise had.

America had an advantage in the air, but wars aren't won by airpower.  There is an old joke that one Soviet general met another Soviet general in Paris and asked him, "By the way, who won the air war?"  Ultimately, US air superiority against Soviet fighters would not have been sufficient to stem the superior Soviet armored and artillery forces, and since stealth technology was not in service yet, US aircraft would have their operations hindered by Soviet SAMs and AAA even if they did achieve victory against the Soviet air force.

At sea, we'd have a draw.  Soviet aircraft and tactics for attacking American carriers were sufficiently advanced that the US would not have been able to effectively deploy or re-supply forces.  Soviet submarines would not make this effort any easier.

The Soviet military was already proving its superiority in subduing Afghan militias.  This contrasted greatly with America's disaster in Vietnam.  It was not until later when the USSR was strained by the US arms buildup and CIA activity that they faltered in central Asia.

Economically, the USSR was behind the US, but there is no doubt that our lead wasn't growing, but was staying constant.  During the decade of the 1970s, the USSR managed to keep pace with the USA.

Jackson is my choice.

My Picks:

1. Dwight Eisenhower
2. Ronald Reagan
3. Calvin Coolidge

In my mind it's FDR because he put drove America in the wrong direction when he tried to solve the depression with his new deal.

From Reassessing the Presidency "It is remarkable to note that. . . to this day Franklin Roosevelt is still appropriating one dollar of every ten. . . to be used by the federal government establishment. In a sense, all of us tithe to the memory of this man."

Lincoln.

I agree with StatesRights.  Lincoln is by far the most overrated, with Reagan in second because of his recent death.  

Lincoln instituted the first not value-based currency in the US, Greenbacks and instituted the first graduated tax on the American people.  So, from his actions can be built the Federal Reserve and the IRS.  Maybe a indirect connection, but it is still there.

1. FDR
2. Lincoln
3. Wilson
4. Reagan
5. JFK

Lincoln, for all the reasons stated, and so many, many more.

Reagan and JFK are tied in my book

In alphabetical order
Clinton
Eisenhower
FDR
JFK
Lincoln

BOO!

reagan by a long shot, he did nothing, he didnt even end the soviet union, it collapsed on its own

That's only clear in retrospect.  The Soviets had serious problems, but they also had the ability to force their citizens to endure hardship in order to continue their relentless military buildup and foreign aggression.  The democratic nations of the west lacked this ability.

When Reagan took office, Soviet power was at its peak in the world.  The Soviets were arguably ahead of the US militarily, all things considered.  They were certainly ahead in conventional arms in Europe, forcing NATO to rely on the first use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to Soviet aggression.  They had recently invaded Afghanistan and were threatening Poland, on top of all the geopolitical gains they had made in the latter half of the 1970s using surrogates like the Cubans.

It was recognized that their economy was performing poorly, but this was mitigated at the time by the fact that they could force their people to endure hardship in order to devote a much higher percentage of their economic output toward the military than the US could ever get away with.

Reagan helped hasten their collapse by forcing them into an arms race that they couldn't afford.  From the mid-1960s, Soviet arms buildups had not been met by a western response, so there was little in the way of their strategic advances, but Reagan hit them where they were weakest by forcing them to strain their faltering economy further in order to keep up, rather than helping them in their weakest areas, as Nixon did under detente, and as the Democrats did and proposed to do.

It is facetious to then apply an inevitability to collapse of the Soviet Union in order to negate Reagan's contribution.  Reagan doesn't deserve the sole credit for their collapse, but he certainly helped.

It is almost always the case that those who make the strongest case of hating the rich, and advancing the poor, usually hurt the poor more than anybody.  Hurting the rich is not a good way to help the poor.  It sounds great but never works.

Definately JFK

I agree that JFK has been seriously overrated.  I think he was a good president, but far from great.  If he hadn't been assassinated, he may have ended up like LBJ.

I love to see the liberals twist themselves into pretzels to explain away their hero's role in getting us into the war that they hated so much.  Some extreme liberals have even advanced the theory that he was assassinated strictly because he intended to withdraw from Vietnam.

Ronald Reagan, despite the fact that he helped bankrupt the USSR he nearly bankrupted this country in the process.  He signed bills that gave tax cuts to the rich, while cutting social benefits and the increasing the tax burden on the middle and lower classes.  He presided over the Iran-Contra affair and denied any responsibility for it.  

FDR!

Reagan.

I like the guy and probably would've voted for him, but he didn't walk on water like most conservatives seem to believe.

After that, Kennedy, simply because he was in office for such a short term of time it would be impossible for him to be one of the best ever. He had potential, but we'll never know if he would've lived up to it.

Agreed.

He did a few of thinks right.

NASA - he supported it while liberal Democrats today constantly try to cut its budget.

Special Forces - he forced the army to accept the Special Forces (aka Green Berets).  Please note the official name of the training facility.

Tax cuts - he was one of the few Democrats on a national level in the past fifty years to support tax cuts.

He appointed Whizzer White to the Supreme Court.

I second that and I could add Dumbya to that as well.  All charisma, no substance!

LBJ and FDR

C'mon you know we were never remotely close to bankruptcy!  His tax cuts spurred our economy after is languished for too many years with high inflation and low growth.

That said, I'd have to say JFK.  He did good things but wasn't in office long enough to be lionized as he is.

Jimmy Carter, because people confuse the man with the presidency.

Jimmy Carter is a decent many who arguably may have made a good  negotiator for the State Department.  I have no argument with his personal faith, morals, or his post ppresidential charity work.  He is being judged on that, not on what he did as president.

Chester A. Arthur

Yeah...I'm really getting tired of asking people who the best President is and getting the same old "Oh Chester Alan Arthur, of course!" response.  :P

Definately Reagan.

Arthur is underrated, people hardly ever mention him but he got some important civil service reforms passed.

Ok honestly......Reagan....he was a good president, but not as god-like as everyone makes him out to be

    Eisenhower, Madison,  Monroe

     The two term Presidents are all overrated.    The two term Presidents are allowed infallibity, and the electorate tends to push the fallibilities of a two term President forward to the one term President who follows.   Reagan and Clinton are the most recent; they will always be overated, and their mistakes taken from their Presidencies and blamed on the hapless Bush's.

      Two term Presidents tend to get their faces on money; almost all of them show up somewhere. 

     Grant, for example,  doesn't deserve to be on any bill.

     Kennedy will eventually be underated.  He was lucky to have Eisenhower and Johnson around him, who contrasted so starkly with Kennedy's image.    But, Kennedy was not saved from having a star crossed Presidency that follows most two term Presidents.  Just about every day of Kennedy's Presidency has been turned over and analyzed.  Eisenhower's Presidency gets no critical attention at all, and he is treated as a kind Cold War Washington.

Lincoln

John Kennedy, although I think he's getting a lot less respect these days than he used to get.

John F. Kennedy

Andrew Jackson

Probably Kennedy and Reagan, although they had great charisma, I'm not sure they accomplished as much as their myths imply. I'd probably rank them high because I think about politics more than administrations and they were both great politicians.

Same with Bill Clinton- great politician, mediocre President. His greatest accomplishment is that he balanced the budget (with Gingrich's help). Not a small accomplishment, but  ho-hum.

Nixon is probably the most underrated. In the words of Lynne Cheney "This is not a good man." Nixon spat in the face of democracy, tried to wipe it off and say he did no such thing. But he really accomplished more than his place in history suggests.

Are we talking about overrated as in good or bad?  Or are we talking about the importance of their presidencies?  Two completely different lists.  Personal politics would have a lot to do with good/bad opinions.

FDR, LBJ second.

       Jackson is unpopular with liberals today because of the The Trail of Tears, the forced   migration of the Cherokees.  Jackson in this era of banking mergers and the credit industry looks very peculiar for throwing out the banking system.

     Jackson is  not overrated because at the present time almost noone rates him highly.

     Jackson hand picked Polk for the Presidency, which was good.   And Jackson said Russia would become the greatest threat and worst enemy of the U.S.  By 1850 the majority of Americans recognized Russia as the greatest threat to democracy in Europe.

      Nixon going to China is the most overrated act by a President of the 20th Century.  Eisenhower overall was the most bumbling error prone President of the 20th Century, with one mistake after another for two terms.  The economy was sustained in the 50s by the New Deal and union labor.

     McKinley is fast becoming the most overrated President, and because Clinton said Cleveland was his favorite President, and Bush is saying McKinley was his favorite President, that entire gilded age era is becoming overrated for Presidents.   Theodore Roosevelt said McKinley had the backbone of a chocolate eclair, and I'm not going to doubt Teddy on that one.

      Historians' rating of Presidents is a different matter from popular ratings of Presidents.   Historians overrate the influences of Madison and Monroe. 

     

1. Lincoln
2. FDR
3. Wilson

Washington, Reagan, and Kennedy.

Reagan

Clinton.

Truman

FDR, Mr. I'm going to ignore the Holocaust, was the most overrated president. It was fate that he died and Truman became president to drop the a-bombs on Japan and to end the war.

JFK, Reagan, Clinton

FDR. And to a lesser extent, LBJ.

I'd have to say Carter, especially since Maddox had to serve as Lt. Gov. under him simply because of a term limit kept him from being reelected Governor.  If it hadn't been for term limits, y'all could have had President Maddox instead of President Carter and the Democrats wouldn't be in the mess that they are today.

Everyone is overlooking the obvious. Lincoln.

I like your spirit, but Lincoln isn't overrated,  He was an SOB who deserved to be shot in 1861 when it would have made a difference, but he was a successful SOB.

I concur with you on that. Booth waited to long. His original plan was to kidnap lincoln in 1863. He almost pulled it off.

Lincoln is one of our best presidents

George W Bush!  The guy is a ing moron.  I do like his ears and his smile though. 

Reagan, Reagan, and... Reagan.

FDR was a bit overrated as well, though I still like him.

Jackson, Wilson, Rord, Clinton. 
O, and let's not forget Jackson.

JFK, JFK, and JFK.  The whole obsession with "Camelot" makes me cringe.  There is no Camelot, and there is very little Kennedy legacy.  The guy was President for two-and-a-half years.  Just think if Clinton had been judged on just that amount of time in office!  He can't accurately be measured, so he shouldn't be included in any list or ranking of great Presidents.  

OK, StatesRights, I give up...why is it that you hate Lincoln so much?  

Heh...yeah, he sucked big time.

Carter sucked as president, but he was hardly overrated.  Even hard-core Democrats admit that he was a horrible president.

Where he has been overrated is in his post-presidential work.  He f**ked up the whole North Korea situation when he went there as Clinton's emissary and has become little more than a tiresome scold, criticizing the conduct of his successor on issues where he himself failed miserably (which is just about everything).

I'd have to say the most overrated president was JFK.  I have nothing against him, but he was president far too short a time to have accomplished anything commensurate with the ratings some have given him.  He is rated highly because of his assassination, not because of anything he did.

Reagan.  Good man, he just does not deserve the praise Republicans heap upon him.

Your maturity is inspiring.

Well, I thought we had this debate as to why I dislike this treasonous villian.

StatesRights got it right. Do we really need to repeat over and over the atrocities comitted by Lincoln before all that public school propaganda makes it out of your head?

Not even talking about the trampling of the 10th ammendment, he wanted to arrest the Chief Justice (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/adams3.html) Because he questioned his strategy;
he turned a free federal republic (http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman66.html) into a centralized tyranny. The  reason he pursued the war (http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo53.html) was to serve the interests of the moneyed republicans who got elected in the first place, and felt the need to control teh south economically. His army slaughtered the indians (http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo40.html). Early on his career, he defended the constitution granted southern states the right to regulate their labor laws as the pleased (http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo37.html). He as a lawyer defended slaveholders (http://www.lewrockwell.com/kantor/kantor6.html).
Finally, he superseed a hoorendous ammount of war crimes (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/wilson2.html), in an uncostitutional war against sovereign states  (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/mccandliss1.html), exerting their constitutional right to seceed.

Can you name me a 19th Century President who didn't pursue a policy of war against some Indian tribe or another?

Since when do states have a constitutional right to secede? Not that I like Lincoln, BTW.

If you think I'm following every single post on every thread on this board, you're dillusional.  You probably did speak of this somewhere else, so excuse me for asking.

I apologize, I didn't mean it as an insult. I just thought me and you had debated this. But if we didn't I apologize.

Dick Cheney.

"I'll slam your head in a car door"

Kiss my ass you pony-tailed piece of street trash.

Haha, I love when you quote Nixon...I have to click on the threads and go back and read them.  Trust me, they keep me rolling!

That's the only thing you could find?

Bono, your arguments are like saying Thomas Jefferson was a slaveowner, thus he is overrated.

Lincoln will be remembered primarily for his prosecuting the federal side of the civil war and for the emancipation proclamation. All of those other things had no or negligible impact on the nation's history. These two things had a massive impact and are what create the name of Lincoln. Depending on your view of these two events, your view of Lincoln will be shaped.

I was merely arguing that he was a terrible man, who deserved to be killed, someone asked why did we hated him.

And I was merely arguing, that all your reasons except the last are minor and insignificant, and for them alone, no one would know or care about this man named Lincoln. So hence, your view of him of him should be judged on the Civil War and its outcomes alone, but if you still hate him and feel he deserved to be killed, so be it.

I also find it unfair to apply today's politically correct standards to someone who lived even 145 years ago.  Lives have to be judged within the context of the time period in which they lived.

A good analysis. However I think NATO's weapons were more advanced technically. Hard to say who would have won. But in the Persian Gulf War Western weapon technology was superior against Soviet's one. But that was 1991 not 1981, though.

One correction to John Ford: in 1981 the US had a noticable advantage at sea.  The location of Soviet naval bases allowed NATO, specifically the US, to know the coming and goings of the Soviet navy, including submarines.  It was not unheard of for a Soviet sub to go out on patrol and be followed by a US attack submarine for its entire patrol without ever knowing it.  Under Reagan this would become more and more common.

NATO weapons were generally a little better than their Soviet counterparts, but the Soviets had lots and lots more of them.

The only reasonable NATO wins sceanrios involved trading land for time while the US, UK and Canada built up forces in Spain and possibly Italy.  When the Soviets reached the natural borders of the Alps and Pyrannes NATO would counterattack, with a possible US landing near Valdivostok to put the Soviets in a two front war.

I've tried to do that before here on the forum, yet no one understands and I get labeled "racist" or "bigot".

When you are able to apply the time's standart's to the Confederates, then we'll talk.

The Third World War scenarios are interesting, but the truth is that the conventional warfare would have been impossible in the conditions of Cold War. Fighting would have been ended shortly by cease fire or more likely by nuclear attacks.

But as I said scenarios are fun so....

I don't believe that the USA landing operation in Russian Far East would have been effective, especially because North Korea would have joined in the war. Also USA would have needed a lot of troops in Cuba. Other  inevitable minor battlefields would have been Vietnam and South China Sea (over 20 000 Soviet troops there) Angola (50 000 Cubans) Yemen (Soviet troops and bases) A big question marks are radical Arab states like Syria and Libya. In 1981 Iraq was in war against Iran that I don't think that they would have interfered.

Finland would have been occupied by Soviets in two weeks. Our military was insignificant during the Cold War years.

It was estimated there was a 25% or so chance that China would join the war, and, if they did, a 90% chance they attacked the Soviet Union.

The US plan for Cuba was to kill Castro and let chaos ensue.  Castro, like many dictators, did not set up any plns for his demise.  The military would likely begin fighting to replace him.  At least, that was the US hope. 

The Middle East would have broken into a series of confused and chaotic wars.  The Saudis and Kuwait would be on the US side, theo ther arab states would likely try anothe rstupid move on Israel hoping for either Soviet backing or for Israel to someho falter this time.  Soviet troops in Yemen woudl find themselves in an untenable position really.  Long way from home, no chance of resupply and an unreliable population.

Vietnam was at this point, I believe, beginning the reforms that would begin the moderniztion.  Not sure how they would play out.  Even if they did side with the Soviets, what could they contribute?  The best they could do is open a second front if China got involved.

I would bet against a Soviet move on Finland.  All it would do is eat up troops without any benefit.

All of the second fronts can be safely ignored while the big battle plays out with the possible exception of Korea.  At this point though the RoK was a credible and ready force.  While the south would suffer terribly in a war, they would not do nearly so poorly as they did in the first war.  The US landing on the Soviet east was dependenant on the situation in Korea.  If the troops were needed their to stabilize the front, they would go there.  Otherwise they land in Russia.

One thing everyone agreed on was that the war would not alst more than a year under any but the most strange circumstances.  The US goes nuclear if they get pushed out of Europe, the Soviets do if they get pushed past the Eastern European satellites.

Ronald Reagan.

I find that people are just looking for an argument when they try to apply today's standards.  It's like Columbus hatred...it's ridiculous.  I actually had a class in college about human evolution, and the professor asked whether or not it was right for Cro Magnon man to wipe out Neanderthal man.  Some girl actually started answering (saying, of course, that it was insensitive and wrong of the Cro Magnons to destroy a lesser peoples) when I interrupted and told everyone how stupid they were!

Got your Personal Message, Huck.  I honestly thought the US-USSR debate had been dropped in this thread.

Anyway, the only thing I could argue with either you or Tredrick is that I think Tredrick overestimates the ability of the US Navy to withstand the attacks of Russian bombers like the Tu-22 "Backfire".  They were a very deadly weapon, and the backbone of our Navy is its carriers.  Lose those, and we might have, and you probably lose the war.

Also, as to the Gulf War comparison, most of the weapons we had in 1991, especially on the Army side, were not in service in 1981.  Most notable on that list is the M-1 Abrams Tank.

There were Soviet bombers based in Cuba during the Cold War so I consider that it would have been necessary to occupy Cuba. I don't think Castro's assassination plan would have worked.

There was a big Soviet naval base in Vietnam. I think that USA should have eliminated at least those forces. Vietnam forces wouldn't have a significant role though. Angola and other pro-Soviet African countries would have been easier to ignore. Probably ally in Africa could have been South Africa. The enemy of your enemy is your friend....

About Finland. Russians have always thought that Finland is a jump gate to St. Petersburg.  That was one reason why we had two separate wars against Soviets during the WWII: The Winter War (1939-1940) and the Continuation War (1941-1944) We saved our independence mainly because of our hard resistance and Stalin's willingness to reach Berlin before your troops. Soviet never occupied our country.

However after the war we had so-called Friendship-Cooperation-Assistance Pact with Soviet Union, what de facto would have allowed to Soviets to bring their troops to Finland in case of World War. This was a cost that we paid for maintaining our democratic system and market economy.

I think that Soviets would have occupied our country for just to make sure that their Northern borders were safe. There were their major naval bases in Kola Peninsula just few dozens miles from our borders. Despite that damn Pact it would have been possible that Finland would have resisted to occupation or at least I hope so....

The Winter War is very interesting war, if you are interested about military history.

http://www.winterwar.com/mainpage.htm

"History" is under construction , but most of other articles seem to be ready.

I am familiar with the Winter War and the Continuation War.  I had forgotten about the pact that let FInland be a non socialist Soviet satellite.  They would still go with a soft occupation, probably only the ports and a few observers in government to make sure the Finns were not getting set to sell them out.  Too much could lead to fighting and they would not want that, especially if they were trying to expand their northern borders.

You are correct that the Soviet Naval base in Vietnam would need to be neutralized. 

John: The Ju-22M3 was a highly effective naval bomber.  It did not enter service until 1981, and was not readily available until 1983.  The older model lacked the self defense capability to defend against naval launched interceptors, let alone the land based aircraft the US could field in the Pacific from Alaska and Japan.

The Soviets also had the bulk of their Backfire bombers and bases in the west, facing Europe. 

A non socialist Soviet satellite. What can I say. True it is, although most Finns still think that our country was "neutral". But is better be non-socialist and non-occupied satellite than socialist and occupied. Thanks to Veterans.

Your scenario about Finland in the Third World War is reasonable.

I'm so glad someone brought up Washington. Needless to say, I second that!

The most overrated president: that original socialist and communitarian, Theodore Roosevelt.

I totally agree with that

Millard Fillmore :)