Benjamin Franklin - would he have made a good President?

[Dazey]

Let's say Ben was a few years younger and quite a bit healthier when the nation's first election in 1788 rolled around. If he ran, would Washington have stepped aside or competed against him? Would he have won? If so, would he have made a good President?

[Rooney]

Dr. Franklin was sufficiently anti-federalist enough, but he was so eccentric he would have made for a fairly odd chief executive.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Yes, but I doubt Washington would step aside. Remember, a few states refused to join unless Washington was president.

[twistory123]

We are born for politics.
he would have been a good president

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Maybe if he'd been elected ten or twenty years earlier. By 1789, he was in his 80s and dying of old age.

[Dancing with Myself]

In his younger and prime days, possibly.

But not in 1789 he was about gone he would have died less than a year after being inaugurated if he was chosen first instead of Washington.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

At the time, there was some speculation that he might have been made VP were it not for his age, I believe.

Had he been born twenty years later, Franklin would have made a great president. Like Washington, he had the patience and the foresight to set a good example for future chief executives, and his experience as a diplomat would have come in handy in the tumult of the French Revolution. Next to Washington, he was probably the most respected man in America, and the general's reluctance to assume the presidency (which appears to have been genuine) might have led him to step aside if Franklin was next in line.