Rating the US Presidents From George Washington to George W. Bush

Rating the US Presidents In the United States we like to rate the President. We measure him as ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ and call what we are measuring his ‘leadership!” We rate him from the moment he takes office and we are quite right to do so. Richard Neustadt Presidential Power (1960)

Presidential rating, 1948-2010 Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. conducted the first systematic rating effort for Life magazine in 1948 and did a follow-up in 1962. Presidential rating surveys now regularly engage scholars, the media and think-tanks

The objects of the exercise

Poll findings over time: Top 6 Schlesinger Sr. Schlesinger Jr. Federalist/WSJ 1962 1996 2000 1. Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln George Washington 2. George Washington George Washington Abraham Lincoln 3. Franklin D. FDR FDR Roosevelt 4. Woodrow Wilson Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson 5. Thomas Jefferson Andrew Jackson Theodore Roosevelt 6. Andrew Jackson Theodore Roosevelt Andrew Jackson

Ratings over time: Bottom 4 Schlesinger Sr. Schlesinger Jr. Federalist Society/WJS 1962 1996 2000 Franklin Pierce Richard Nixon Andrew Johnson James Buchanan Andrew Johnson Franklin Pierce Ulysses S. Grant James Buchanan Warren Harding Warren Harding Warren Harding James Buchanan

The C-Span Surveys Arguably the most systematic surveys that seek to rank presidents on the basis of scores awarded for ten leadership qualities Public Persuasion Crisis Leadership Economic management Moral Authority International Relations Administrative Skills Relations with Congress Vision/Agenda-Setting Pursuit of Equal Justice to All Performance within Context of times

The C-Span Survey of 2009: Top 10 Bottom 10 1.Abraham Lincoln 33. Rutherford Hayes 2.George Washington 34. Herbert Hoover 3.Franklin D. Roosevelt 35. John Tyler 4. Theodore Roosevelt 36. G.W. Bush 5. Harry S. Truman 37. Millard Fillmore 6. John F. Kennedy 38. Warren Harding 7. Thomas Jefferson 39. William H. Harrison 8. Dwight D. Eisenhower 40. Franklin Pierce 9. Woodrow Wilson 41. Andrew Johnson 10.Ronald Reagan 42. James Buchanan

The ratings game – the shortcomings What is being measured? What is presidential ‘greatness’? How can we compare presidential leadership over time? Is it justifiable to give equal weighting to all categories when some are patently more important to a particular president? Are fine distinctions of leadership performance truly possible – particularly in the middling group of presidents (13-30)? Is there judgement bias in surveys because left-of centre scholars broadly favour liberal presidents? Do ratings favour earlier presidents because they are less familiar? There’s a clear sense of why a few presidents are great and some are failures, but can we really make fine judgements about those bunched in the middle, particularly from 15-25 Small numbers are surveyed – 65 by C-Span – is there liberal bias among academics. Conservative outrgae that the Schlesinger 1996 poll did not give Ronald Reagan a high rating prompted the Federalist Society/Wall Street Journal survey What is presidential greatness? Should different qualities have equal weighting? Do we admire earlier presidents more because we know less about them and do we allow for the reality that the modern presidency is a much tougher job than in the distant past

An example of rating anomalies C-Span 2009 survey ranked as follows for economic management 1. Washington 6. JFK 2. Lincoln 7. Wilson 3. Clinton 8. DDE 4. TR 9. Jefferson 5. FDR 10. Truman But Nos. 1, 2, 4, 7 and 9 occupied the presidency before it acquired its economic management role (& instruments thereof) ... And where’s LBJ (11) and Reagan (17 - behind John Quincy Adams at 16)?

But the rating game continues… The rating game is here to stay because the president is the focal point of the US political system We expect presidents to be strong leaders and to use their leadership qualities to do good – so rating them in comparison to each other is one way of assessing how they measure up to such expectations

The UK Survey The first scholarly UK survey Confined to UK and Irish scholars (US and Canadian scholars based in UK excluded) Historians, political scientists and IR scholars participated Scholarly scepticism but media interest BBC News web article on survey received over 100,000 hits in 24 hours

UK Survey Method 47 scholars graded 40 presidents (William H. Harrison and Garfield excluded) Assessed on: vision/agenda-setting; domestic leadership; foreign policy leadership; moral authority; positive historical significance of their legacy

UK Survey: Best and worst (C-Span 2009 for comparison) FDR (3) 31. GW Bush (36) Lincoln (1) 32. Arthur (32) Washington (2) 33. Taylor (29) Jefferson (7) 34. B. Harrison (30) TR (4) 35. Fillmore (37) Wilson (9) 36. A. Johnson (41) Truman (5) 37. Tyler (35) Reagan (10) 38. Harding (38) Jackson (13) 39. Pierce (40) Eisenhower (8) 40. Buchanan (42)

The greatest presidents GW Surveys are consistent in their selection of the top three presidents – Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt Each held office in time of crisis and showed great skill, fortitude and resilience in dealing with great challenges Some presidents have been disappointed that lack of crisis in their times denied them the opportunity for greatness Crisis creates the opportunity for great leadership but does not guarantee it - George W. Bush is rated a lowly 36 in C-Span 2009 FDR Abe

Their achievement

The near greats Jefferson TR Harry Woodrow There is broad agreement in the surveys that Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman are just below the top three. Jefferson wins plaudits for a strong stand on civil liberties, bi-partisan persuasion and the Louisiana Purchase. TR wins plaudits for the strong leadership during a time of great domestic change, his strategic Panama canal initiative and his role in consolidating America’s rise to great power status. Truman is held in high regard for his foreign policy of containment, commitment to African-American civil rights and management of prosperity. Kennedy has moved up the polls to make the C-Span top 6 in 2009 – this may reflect appreciation of his vision and crisis management from the perspective of today’s America, but his commitment to civil rights, management of prosperity and public rhetoric also win him points. Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower are constants; Andrew Jackson, James Polk, Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan also show up well. The ratings favour strong presidents who were either successful foreign policy leaders and/or had a significant influence in shaping the domestic course of the nation Harry Woodrow

Their achievements

Reagan: Near great, great or ...? Wilson is rated highly for his development of Progressive reforms, his foreign policy leadership and his economic management, but scores badly on pursuit of justice to all and only moderately on relations with Congress Eisenhower scores well on foreign policy in a time of crisis, pursuit of equal justice for all and administrative skills Reagan has only just started to feature in the top 10 but earns plaudits for vision, economic leadership, and foreign policy in particular

The worst presidents: scandal Warren G

The worst presidents: 1850s Franklin Pierce (discredited Manifest Destiny and Popular Sovereignty) James Buchanan (pro-slavery) Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan are consistently low in the polls because they are seen as having failed to halt the slide towards Civil War. Recent polls are unanimous in adjudging Buchanan the worst president because of his appeasement of the south on slavery expansion and his failure to act in the secession crisis. Millard Fillmore (on set of slavery)

Failure to resolve sectional crisis

Worst presidents: Reconstruction Andrew Johnson also has a lowly poll rating because his historical reputation has undergone significant change. In the early twentieth century he was lauded for prioritizing reconciliation with the South after the Civil War and speeding the re-entry of Southern states into the Union. A MGM movie, released in 1943, Tennessee Johnson with Van Heflin in the lead role, showed him as brave leader prepared to risk impeachment by congressional Republicans interested only in punishing the South. In recent times, however, Johnson is seeing as having betrayed Lincoln’s legacy by his failure to ensure post-war reconstruction adequately protected the rights of newly emancipated slaves Andrew Johnson

Is there bias against recent presidents? No post-1945 president in UK top 5 Truman (7), Reagan (8), and Eisenhower (10) make top 10, but Reagan is the only post-1960 president to do so Does this reflect a decline in the quality of leadership or failure to allow that the modern presidency is a much tougher job?

Two surprises: JFK (15), Carter (18)

Nixon: No longer the pits, just average Nixon: No longer the pits, just average....! No 23 (between GHW Bush and Ford) Bill Clinton rises from 21 to 15 in C-Span 2009 based on his economic leadership and pursuit of justice for all, but not moral authority (37th place) Ulysses Grant (23d in C-Span 2009, last but one in Schlesinger 1962) and Richard Nixon (27th in C-Span 2009, 38th in Schlesinger 1996) benefit from growing recognition that their presidencies entailed more than just scandal. Grant is now seen as having striven for equal justice for all through his efforts to protect Southern blacks from the Ku Klux Klan and gains points for foreign policy success. There is presently a campaign for Ronald Reagan to replace Grant on the $50 bill, but this has provoked a number of historians into a defence of his right to stay on the bill. Nixon recovered from bottom 4 ranking in the Schlesinger 1996 poll to go up from 38 to 25 in C-Span 2001. This reflected recognition that his presidency was about more than Watergate – opening to China, détente with the soviets, southern school desegregation, environmental reform. But his slippage to 27 in C-Span 2009 suggests that GWB’s resurrection of the Imperial Presidency has also hurt Nixon in the ratings.

George W. Bush: A lowly rating (31st) Bush’s 36th place is the lowest ranking of any president since Warren Harding Bush professed not to be interested in history’s short term view of his presidency. Karl Rove, his political adviser, once remarked: ‘President Bush is fond of saying that, in the short run, history always gets it wrong.’ Bush himself defiantly decalred in his very last presidential press conference: ‘There is no such thing as short-term history. I don’t think you can get the full breadth of an administration until time has passed.’ Bush expects his reputation to improve in the long-term – but what are his prospects of doing so?

Obama’s Prospects: Will the economy (and the public debt) decide? Enactment of healthcare reform enhances the Obama legacy Obama is also likely to score well for vision, moral authority and pursuit of equal justice But a good rating will depend on his economic record And on whether he wins re-election – presidents with high ratings all won a second term (the only current top 10 president not to do so is John Kennedy)

One overview ... ‘… the presidency has been responsible for less harm and more good, in the nation and in the world, than perhaps any other secular institution in history.’ Forrest McDonald The American Presidency: An Intellectual History (1994)

... And a contrary one Of the 14 presidents who held office from 1920 to 2009, only three were successful (FDR, DDE, RR) - Thomas Cronin, On the Presidency: Teacher, Soldier, Shaman, Pol (2009) “Many scholars continue to attribute to the presidency highly romantic qualities of integrity, honesty, and competence rarely seen in the Oval Office.” - Louis Fisher, “Teaching the Presidency: Idealizing a Constitutional Office,” PS, Jan. 2012