Talk Elections

Well? Here's mine:

1. Teddy Roosevelt (progressive and badass, an unbeatable combo)
2. FDR (13 f[inks]ing years of New Dealing and war-winning)
3. Lincoln (Need I explain?)
4. Wilson (FDR Lite)
5. Kennedy (Civil rights, saved the world)

LBJ would be #4 but for the 'Nam.

1. Calvin Coolidge
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. Martin Van Buren
4. Ronald Reagan
5. JFK

Honourable mentions: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Grover Cleveland, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
2. Theodore Roosevelt (R)
3. Abraham Lincoln (R)
4. Dwight Eisenhower (R)
5. Jimmy Carter (D)

Honorable mentions: Kennedy, Wilson, Nixon, Jefferson, Lyndon Johnson.

1. Bill Clinton
2. John F. Kennedy
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
4. Dwight Eisenhower
5. Thomas Jefferson

1. Franklin Roosevelt
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Dwight D. Eisenhower
4. John F. Kennedy
5. Lyndon Johnson

.... hon mentions to: Bill Clinton  Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, 50% of Richard Nixon and Thomas Jefferson

1) Dwight D. Eisenhower
2) George W. Bush
3) Richard Nixon
4) Bill Clinton
5) Ronald Reagan

Favorite, as opposed to best (granted, they're not all that different)

1. Franklin Roosevelt
2. Harry Truman
3. Lyndon Johnson
4. Teddy Roosevelt
5. Abraham Lincoln

Favorite:

1) Abraham Lincoln
2) Thomas Jefferson
3) Ronald Reagan
4) Harry Truman
5) Grover Cleveland

Franklin Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
Dwight Eisenhower
Andrew Jackson
Lyndon Johnson

Lincoln
TR
FDR
Eisenhower
LBJ

1) Franklin Delano Roosevelt
2) Calvin Coolidge
3) Richard Nixon
4) Andrew Jackson
5) John F. Kennedy

ugh.. arthur, jackson, van buren, hayes, washington i guess. not necessarily in that order.

1. John F. Kennedy
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt
3. Abraham Lincoln
4. Jimmy Carter
5. Theodore Roosevelt

1 Franklin Roosevelt
2 Abraham Lincoln
3 Lyndon Johnson
4 Theodore Roosevelt
5 Thomas Jefferson

1. Franklin Roosevelt
2. Lyndon Johnson
3. Harry Truman
4. John Kennedy
5. Barack Obama

Really ?

1. Van Buren
2. Cleveland
3. Tyler
4. Coolidge
5. Taylor

1. Eisenhower
2. Lincoln
3. Reagan
4. George W. Bush
5. George H. W. Bush

Interesting.

Did you take yours straight from the libertarian "master list"?

Urgh, hard one.

1. Lincoln
2. FDR
3. Carter
4. Jefferson?
5. Teddy Roosevelt?

I don't even know.

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Franklin Roosevelt
3. George Washington
4. John F. Kennedy
5. Barack Obama or Bill Clinton

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt
3. Theodore Roosevelt
4. Harry Truman
5. Lyndon Johnson

ROFL

I mean, just ROFL.

All of those five would probably be in my bottom 10 or 15.

Hmm, let me see here:

1. Thomas Jefferson (Democratic Republican-Virginia)
2. Calvin Coolidge (Republican-Massachusetts)
3. S. Grover Cleveland (Democratic-New York)
4. John Q. Adams (National Republican-Massachusetts)
5. Chester A. Arthur (Republican-New York)

Not like yours were much better. Lincoln? LBJ? Teddy? Really?

Good list, I would probably put JQA and Lincoln as the final two.

LBJ is somewhat debatable, but it's pretty obvious why one could consider him a great president. Lincoln and Teddy are widely considered by historians as being among the best.

Tyler, on the other hand, is clearly in the bottom five for a sane person.

LBJ had some good parts of his presidency (Freedom of Information Act, Civil Rights Act of 1964), but the vast majority of it (Voting Rights Act (not all of it, just Section 5; namely, the part of Section 5 that allows/mandates FL-03), Vietnam, the draft, Agent Orange, wiretapping MLK, invading the Dominican Republic, and supporting a coup in Brazil) was bad. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, locked up politicians who opposed him, shut down newspapers, started a draft, launched the Dakota War of 1862, and possibly tried to assassinate a foreign head of state (Dahlgren Affair and whatnot). Teddy liked to invade things like the Philippines, and his foreign policy towards places like the DR, Japan, and Panama was worse than most modern-day neo-cons.

While I don't agree with Tyler's expansionist policies, particularly regarding Texas, he did manage to get several border disputes resolved via the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, didn't interfere with the Doorite incident in Rhode Island, and ended the Second Seminole War (the most costly Indian War in history).

Sanity is relative, Antonio.

Yeah, not sure that I would put John Freaking Tyler on my top 5.  However it's kind of impossible for there to be a sort of objective consensus about "favorite" presidents.  I mean yeah, there are a lot of ketchup fans but that doesn't change the fact that there are mustard fans or clam chowder fans.

[/moderate hero rant]

I think Reagan was a horribly awful President, but I can understand why some people would think he was a great one. Same (to a lesser extent) for H. W. Bush, McKinley, Jackson, etc. But as for Tyler, it just makes no sense. It's not that I particularly dislike him or his policies; he was just an epic failure.

Yes I agree.

It takes a particularly brave soul to defend John Tyler.  I mean, people can at least say Buchanan was dealt a bad card.....

Worth noting that there's considerable daylight between "favourite" and "best".

1) Truman.
2) Franklin D. Roosevelt.
3) Lincoln.
4) Kennedy.

Sure, after the other four listed.  Who would be further left than him other than FDR, Truman, LBJ, and Kennedy?

Eh...

Not sure on mine.


Makes sense I guess. Why do you like JQA though? I like him too, but from what I know, no libertarian should like him.

Since TR, Eisenhower and Nixon were all more left-wing than him, I'm surprised at your choice.

This I can understand.

He certainly did fail on re-election, his cabinet (which is one of the main reasons I respect him; he was willing to go against his party based on his principles), and his domestic agenda, but he managed to achieve multiple significant foreign policy landmarks (some of which I already mentioned; I think I forgot to mention he opened China to US trade as well) during his administration.

Still, did you have to copy straight from the Libertarian Master List?

Yes. Yes I did.

Isn't Libertarianism about independent thinking or something like that?

It's about free will and doing your own thing so long as it doesn't harm others, so yes, independent thinking. My independent thinking led me to be lazy instead of mentally disputing the relative achievements of Chester A. Arthur and Millard Fillmore, so that I could spend my time on more important things, like video games :P

I think that's debatable, and in any case those men were right-of-center in their times, which is no recommendation of their character (in fact I find both TR and Nixon a bit distasteful, but Eisenhower it is true was very acceptable for a Republican).  I think Obama's inclinations are to the left of an Eisenhower, he is just trapped by the horrible new ultra-right reality of american government.

He wasn't THAT bad.  And anyway, I don't really consider myself libertarian now days.  Too many Scotmanesque qualities in there that prevents me from really thinking through various issues (no offense guys).
It's not really the fault of people who are libertarians, just that the philosophy is set up that way.  Mint pretty much nails it on the head with the "you're either whole hog or you're not" spiel.  I'd guess if I'm anything I'm probably a VERY cynical classical liberal.

[/awaits inevitable flame war]

And anyway, he is definitely a principled man who held some brave views and I believe had a courage that was unequal of his day, even if he was a crazy tariff supporter.  And a few bolts and nuts saner than his successor in office.

I'd have to agree with you there. The Adams family (hah) (at least John and JQA) was very into taking their stand on an issue and not budging. That's why we didn't end up in official war with either France or England back in the late 1790's. Heck, now I feel like I should include at least one of them in my top 5. Not sure which one though.

And I definitely would have supported him over Andrew Jackson, a man it seems every US History teacher has fallen in love with for some reason.

I love you.

Oh man. That's going to hurt.

inb4 shitstorm from libertards

I do not rank presidents but if this is a list of my FAVORITE presidents that is a different matter entirely.

1. Warren G. Harding is a president that I have always personally liked. Any man who can play the Sousaphone and run a newspaper will always receive high marks from me.

2. Andrew Johnson stands as one of my favorite presidents. His father died trying to save men from drowning, I have always respected the tailoring profession and his work to help Native Americans is to be respected (my mother was a Native American).

3. Martin van Buren as an obvious libertarian pick. I have always respected van Buren. When I was in first grade it was because of his whiskers, which I found pretty cool. Over time I have grown to respect how he labored to make retail politics respectable and form a presidency which tried to preserve peace. My one issue with him has always been the Trial of Tears but after enough research I have come to the conclusion that nothing else could have been done.

4. Theodore Roosevelt is one of my personal favorites even though I do not really like anything he did. He was a man's man. If you ever read Commissioner Roosevelt by H. Paul Jeffers you will learn of a lot of awesome deeds that Roosevelt did as police commissioner in NYC. It will simply cement in your mind that TR was the most bad ass man until the birth of Jason Statham.

5. Jimmy Carter is a president that I have always liked because he worked on a nuclear sub. I think that he is what Bobby Fischer would have been if the chess great had social skills. 

You say Wilson is #4 like warmongering is a good thing. Like creating the Fed and income taxes is a good thing. Like creating the Constitution-shredding Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918 were good things. Like military interventions in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Russia (not to mention WWI) were good things. Like Prohibition was a good thing. Like the Palmer Raids were a good thing. Like the Harrison Narcotics Act was a good thing. Like the Treaty of Versailles was a good thing. Like instituting the draft, which has been unconstitutional since 1865, was a good thing. Like segregation was a good thing.

There's your

Off the top of my head I can think of only the following as remarkable and/or respectable;

Theodore Roosevelt
Abraham Lincoln
Gerald Ford
George Washington

and probably others...but those are four I know for sure I'd rank near the very top.

Regarding segregation, wouldn't that rule out a whole lot of them? Lincoln himself was a racist by today's standards.

I believe that income taxes and the Fed are good things, and that our entry into WWI was justified. What I've read of the Harrison Act doesn't indicate it being actively bad.

And I don't like Lincoln any better than Wilson, so... Yeah, income tax=bad, Fed=bad (both for obvious reasons), war=bad (oh, of course, except when it's a Democrat doing the killing, I forgot), Harrison Act=bad (Prohibition-style stuff on cocaine).

1. FDR
2.  TR
3. Lincoln
4. Truman
5. LBJ

Where is the peanut farmer? It's very unfortunate that he had to be defeated by the man that brought the beginning of the end to America, I thought you would be more sympathetic to him.

I'd probably rank Wilson in the bottom five of all the presidents in history the man obviously didn't understand the long term implications of any of the idea's he proposed.

Just because Carter was defeated by the worst president in American history doesn't necessarily put him among the top five. I suppose he would be number six - good president.

I read a story a long time ago about a first conversation between Fischer and Nixon.  Nixon wanted to invite Fischer to the White House after the latter had won the world championship, so Nixon personally called him.  In the first few moments of the conversation, Nixon tried to ingratiate himself by saying something like: "I played chess a lot years ago."  Fischer responded: "So what?"

5. George W. Bush
4. Andrew Jackson
3. Calvin Coolidge
2. George H.W. Bush
1. Ronald Reagan

What... what has... what is this?

Not really a ranking.

FDR was the best.

Lincoln was decent.

Wilson and LBJ did some good things, but also have bad sides.

Carter is the last President we had who was any good.

Not gonna claim to know a whole lot about American history so I'll just do post WW2.

1. Dwight Eisenhower
2. Gerald Ford
3. JFK
4. (I'm struggling here) Ronald Reagan
5. Bill Clinton (Close call with Obama/Carter, others are epic HPs though I don't know too much about Truman.)

I would say that Reagan was actually the best President of the past 50 years, and Jimmy Carter the worst.  Not to say that either of their presidencies was all good or bad, though.

5.Johnson
4.Kennedy
3.Lincoln
2.Obama
1.Clinton

1. Calvin Coolidge
2. Andrew Jackson
3. Grover Cleveland
4. Warren G. Harding
5. George Washington

Honorable Mentions: Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Clinton, John Tyler, James Monroe, Martin Van Buren

1. Washington
2. Reagan
3. Coolidge
4. Eisenhower
5. Lincoln

Martin Van Buren
Grover Cleveland
John Tyler
Calvin Coolidge
Warren G. Harding

1. FDR
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. Theodore Roosevelt
5. George Washington

Worst: George W. Bush

I like the foreign policy. He destroyed the Taliban Government in Afghanistan. Surely that must be a plus.

That's a minus...

So you'd prefer that it was still legal to stone women in Afghanistan. Me no understand :(

I'd prefer that Americans wouldn't be dying in foreign wars of aggression, in suppressing a guerrilla movement, or in 'nation building'. While the Taliban being overthrown is good, the cons outweigh the pros.

Look, BritishDixie, you have to understand that Liberalism is all about tolerance. You have to learn to tolerate and appreciate the lifestyles these people live, as alternatives to our own evil, Western lifestyles, and to appreciate the culture and heritage. Women getting stoned and raped is an important part of that and I think we should all respect that.

I think it's finally time I put down a list...

Remember, it's not best Presidents, but favorite ones. Keep that in mind.

1. John Calvin Coolidge (Republican-Massachusetts)
2. William McKinley (Republican-Ohio)
3. John Adams (Federalist-Massachusetts)
4. Ronald Wilson Reagan Richard Milhous Nixon (Republican-California)
5. Stephen Grover Cleveland (Democrat-New York)

I honestly wasn't sure who to put. Among contenders were John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren (not even sure why), Abe Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, etc. Really, I don't think that I can rank them, but here's my first attempt. Have at it.

I thought you loved Nixon?

You're right. I guess ol' Ronald can be bumped for the original Best President from California.

It would be a plus if the Taliban were actually destroyed.