Talk Elections

...

Harding. Worst President of the 20th century. Only achievement was to die in office.

Out of these, Hoover expanded government the most. So him.

I would have picked Lincoln if it was truly all-inclusive, though.

Bush II, though Reagan is close.

So many weasels in the past 100 years that a choice is hard. I'll go with Bush-43 for the moment. He's invaded American freedom and privacy in ways that only the likes of Wilson and F. Roosevelt also have.

Harding.  Not just because of Teapot Dome.  He sucked up to the business interests that ultimately brought us the Depression.  He was a womanizer who was unsuited to be president.  His only redeeming quality was that he was a nice guy. 

Bush 43.

I don't see how people are saying Bush43 is worse than Harding and Hoover.  Those two go on their own plateau--it's that that the people lving through Bush tend to exaggerate his ineptitude as they have experience it themselves and not just read some articles on the internet.

Harding deserves some credit for initiating the only naval arms limitation treaty of its time. Hoover had some bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he really could have done more to ease the Depression. Bush43 didn't just have bad luck, nor did he do the world any good at all.

He attacked his own country. How can anyone do anything worse than that?

Uh, Iraq is not Bush's country.

I suppose LiberalPA is saying Bush was behind the 9-11 attacks.

Usually you expect coherent thoughts from him.

God this is hard, um...................................


1 : Harding-puppet for big corporations
2 : Bush 43- to many to name.
3 : Bush 41- sucked
4 : Taft- sucked too
5 : Nixon-i just hate him

Many of these people have no historical perspective.  I think more recent presidents should be left out of these surveys because there's no way to judge a president still in office, or one who has recently left.

Those who say Bush 43 is the worst president are only revealing their own biases and lack of historical perspective.  The jury will be out on his presidency for some time after he leaves office.  Many of these people probably don't realize that many presidents now considered great were thought of in the same way when they were in office.  Harry Truman is the best example I can think of.  Except for his first year or so in office, Truman was highly controversial and pretty unpopular for most of his nearly eight years in office.

Harding


It is hilarious to see the liberals saying Bush is the worst. I bet the older generations would laugh at that. :P

Harding was a pretty good president-for the time he was in office.  I'd say between Nixon and George W. Bush, but Hoover was bad too.

Yeah, you can change your avatar to Democrat now.

why? It's not like I'm saying anything bad about Reagan.

Bush is tied with someone who imposed wage and price controls?

The reason, mainly I dislike Bush is because of his foreign policy of pre-emption and because he has grown the size of government.  As far as economics go, my only major concern with him is that he's digging a huge deficit.

Fair enough. Why are you green, though?

inside joke-on the fantasy thread.  If Gabu doesn't say anything soon, I'll change back by tomorrow or so.  Sometimes I'm just green like last week because the colors are the same as my university and I want to support my team in football.

B Harrison


oops...okay, Nixon.

Reagan was the worst. He armed bin Laden and Saddam. He set us up for the mess we are in now with Bush.

Harding because of scandal, though Coolidge based purely on policy.

I think, it is no contest.

Nixon has done the most to undermine the Presidency and the US polity in general. This dominates anything else about his or anyone else's policy successes and failures.

Though, to be honest, even policywise a lot of what he did was toying with disaster. He was, probably, the only true small-s sociallist ever in the White House, he went a lot further than caution required in cozying up to Communists, etc. But all of this is relatively minor, compared with the main thing.

Harding easily. One of the most corrupt and unscrupulous men to ever hold the office of the president. Those who are saying the Bush-43 is the worst really are complete idiots especially the one who gave the meek defence that just because Harding signed the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 that he is somehow exempt from the stupidites, corruption, and scandel of the rest of his presidency.

Harding by far.  He was a total waste as President.  My runner up is Veteran-Killer Coolidge.

"Veteran-Killer?"  If you are referring to the Bonus March, that was Hoover.

Of these, the worst Republican President by far is Harding.

He was nothing more than a puppet of the party bosses who put him into the Presidential nomination so they could control the administration.

The result was scandal and corruption over which Harding had no control, or turned a blind eye to.

Harding was weak, indecisive, and immoral, and should never have been given the nomination in the first place. 

Agreed, Winfield. Harding was completely awful.

Hoover and George W. Bush were also astonishingly bad, although admittedly, I have some sympathy for the former.

Reagan is vastly overrated, but was still a decent President. At any rate, he was certainly better than his opposition. Bush 41 had brilliant foreign policy, but didn't actually care about what happened with his own country.

I find Nixon to be vastly underrated and not much really happened to judge Ford, although I have a tremendous amount of respect for him.

George W Bush will go down in history as by far the worst POTUS.  Infact he will go down as a hundred times worse than Nixon, Hoover, or Carter.

Reagan. He opened the door for a slew of bad presidents.

Harding.  What the heck's wrong w/ Reagan?

He set up the final end of the Soviet Union, reinvigorated capitalism, reestablished the US military and lowered taxes.  In Opebo land, those are all bad things.

Roosevelt or Ford

Ha, now there's a movie I'd go to see: "Bush II-The Plot Thickens"

I voted for GW Bush, I appreciate that some contemporarily unpopular Presidents have gone up in the public's perception over the year but I honestly think that his will be the most maligned Presidency of the next generation. Hell, I'd have Lloyd Bridges' President in Hot Shots part Deux over GW...

First, I'll respond here.  Let's see:  He actually nearly started a war with the Soviet Union and if Russia had had nearly any other leader, but Gorbachev, a war easily could've been started.  He created a massive deficit (which Republicans are simply famous for) and led the way to an economic recession, massively expanded government in the one area that truly needs massive budget cuts-the DOD when we spend an obscene amount on defense for nearly no true purpose, and lowered taxes which helped caused the troubles above.

Therefore, though Harding and Reagan pull very close seconds, the one man who lied the most, caused the most deaths, and did the least good is the true worst president.  George W. Bush carries this "honor" in my mind.  No other President caused so many deaths for such a meaningless cause and lied about the reasons for it.  Now the Vietnam War at least had a shred of legitimacy since Communist expansion did slightly threaten our interests, he also did good things that could make up for his serious mishaps.  However, Bush has simply done sh*t. 

Of those listed, Ford was far and away the very worst.

The 1970s were America's political nightmare.

To be honest, Bush 43.  I like him as a person, but as a president he's just horrible.

Hoover.

In my opinion Teddy Rooselvet is the worst Republican president. Mr. Roosevlet is a liberal who does not support real Republican policies. As a conservative the best president is Ronald Reagan who shares my values.

Definitely Bush 43.

Nixon and Reagan were corrupted criminals, but at least their foreign policy was succesful, so Bush II is worst.

This thread is well in keeping with the positions of political malcontents throughout the history of our country, as well as many others.  A poll at any time of citizens who are unhappy with the president in office would look the same.  "The current president is the worst ever, and will compare unfavorably with future presidents."  Everyone thinks they've got it bad.  The positions about President Bush on this thread are meaningless.   

Nixon was the worst.  To those who chose Bush 43, remember that however bad Iraq looks now, it pales in comparison to Vietnam and Nixon's illegal expansion of the war into Laos and Cambodia.  Also, Bush's domestic infringements of personal liberties also pale in comparison to what went on under Nixon against his political enemies and those in the anti-war and civil rights movements (COINTEL-PRO).

()

Ronald Wilson Reagan

Since I have to observe the thirty-year rule (it takes thirty years or so after a president has left office to judge his performance fairly), I'd have to pick Harding. Although McKinley, Taft, Coolidge, Hoover, Nixon, and Ford were pretty bad too.

Translations:

Set up the final end of the Soviet Union- talked a lot about how bad they were without actually doing much about it, then grabbed the credit (ask Lech Walesa how he feels about that);
Reinvigorated capitalism- let monopoly capitalists run wild and destroy the free-enterprise system;
Reestablished the U.S. military- ballooned military spending to irresponsibly high levels, much of it on unnecessary weapons systems;
Lowered taxes- he certainly did that, but while simultaneously increasing spending, thereby creating huge budget deficits.

Yeah, Hoover ftw

Massive Deficit Spending, Growing Government Bureaucracy, Iran-Contra, Ignoring AIDs, ill-advised alliances (Iraq, Mujihideen, etc.), "Homelessness is a choice", Appointing Crooks and Hacks like Ed Meese, Making Taxes more regressive, and allying with the Religious Right. And that's just for starters.

Oh and the claim that he "won the Cold War" is a ludicrous. The Soviets Union was doomed from the get go, as all regimes of their ilk are. The only way they might have survived is if they made serious reforms early on (similar to China), and if they did that they'd no longer be Communist. Reagan is the most overrated President in recent memory, maybe of all time.

Why isn't Bill Clinton on this list?

This is an incredibly difficult.  I am conflicted between whether Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Junior did a worse job.

Bill Clinton was a dem.

Only by the broadest and most bigoted meaning of the term.

Bill Clinton was a freedom fighter if a bit liberal on immigration issues.

Either Harding or, including pre-20th-century, Rutherford Hayes. Nixon was pretty bad overall but legal gold ownership happened on his watch. Hoover comes pretty close to worst in how he governed, but his accomplishments in other areas do push him up some (sort of like how Thomas Jefferson is one of the greats despite some bone-headed policy decisions in office, like the embargo).

Anyone saying 'Reagan' is either ill-informed or a dimbulb. Granted, however, that if you don't have any historical context "Bush 43" would seem like a reasonable choice....

also Bill Clinton was a Democrat. Considering how Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan, and Grover Cleveland were all in the same party in roughly the same period in history (1880-1920)... all Democrats. Heck, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Nelson Rockefeller were all Republicans in the 1960s, and they have some huge differences between them.  He wasn't even really right of the Democrat base, especially pre-1994 - he's just a poll-watcher and responded to the 1994 mid-terms and the failure of Hillarycare take 1by deciding to govern more from the center.

Ronald Reagan did more damage to America than Bin Laden could ever dream of.

By far the two worst are George W. Bush and Richard Nixon.  Those are the only two that I can think of that have been controversial over any sort of domestic spying.  The foreign policy of the two was also the worst of those choices.  At least Nixon had the arms treaty with the USSR, which almost balanced out the mess he helped make in Southeast Asia.  I voted Bush 43 in the poll because I have a feeling that an even worse president will be after him.  Better presidents were right after Richard Nixon.

Nixon and Bush 43 are not the two worst presidents ever, though they are both in the bottom 5.  The other three are Lyndon Johnson, Woodrow Wilson and Bill Clinton.

Herbert Hoover's philosophies ran contrary to what Republicans should stand for, at least in the economic sector. His socialistic economic policies only made the Depression worse. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and the 1932 Revenue Act are in particular the worst policies of his administration. The tariff act harmed America's international relations and damaged commerce, while the Revenue Act was a completely unnecessary law which raised many taxes. These both helped make the Depression worse.

Harding is pretty close to Hoover as well: a man completely unprepared for the presidency. And his verbal gaffes were worse than Bush's.

Responding to liberalPA's post, I highly doubt that George W. Bush himself was responsible for the attacks.  It was probably the CIA and/or the banking interests that planned and carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.  Those groups have much more power than the President, in fact the President is a mere puppet to them.  This especially goes for the people who run the banking interests of this country (Rockefellers, Rothschilds, probably others).  The government carrying out the attacks does not mean that the responsibility falls on the President.  He for sure knew about it, but I would not say that he was completely and directly responsible.  Bush went along with it because he is only a puppet.  The real elite would have likely had him assassinated if he would not have gone along with it.

The CIA propped up al-Qaeda in the the 1980s during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.  Whether the government carried them out, or al-Qaeda, the US government is at least indirectly responsible for the attacks.

Your second paragraph makes a good point. Your first paragraph is ridiculous.

I voted for the 29th President of the United States, Warren G. Harding. Most of his economic policies led to the Great Depression.

I tend to believe it was Coolidge's overall laziness that led to the severity of the depression. As Mencken said "Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but Coolidge only snores."

Exactly. Harding may have been corrupt, but the problems accumulated during the Coolidge administration, with 6 long years of laissez-faire.

I chose Warren Harding.  Richard Nixon would be a close second.  Dubya is actually middle of the road for me.  Not too great, not too horrible.  Dubya is just a little worse than his father who wasn't great, but wasn't horrible, and was more of a placeholder between the Reagan era and the Clinton era.

Hoover is definatley the worst. Bush comes close.

Hoover was defintely the worst (bit of a no brainer). George W is a good second tier President.