Ten Best, ten worst Presidents

[ScottieF]

Ten Best:

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Theodore Roosevelt
4. George Washington
5. Lyndon B. Johnson
6. Dwight D. Eisenhower
7. Harry S. Truman
8. Ulysses S. Grant
9. Woodrow Wilson
10. Andrew Jackson

Ten Worst:

1. Franklin Pierce
2. Andrew Johnson
3. James Buchanan
4. John Tyler
5. George W. Bush
6. Zachary Taylor
7. Millard Fillmore
8. Martin Van Buren
9. Warren G. Harding
10. Rutherford B. Hayes

[ScottieF]

So since I'm a complete nerd about this stuff, here's an aggregate ranking of the presidents on this topic thus far (+1 each time someone got voted as a Top Ten pres, -1 each time they got voted as a Bottom Ten).

1. Washington +18
2. Jefferson +17
3. Eisenhower +13
3. T. Roosevelt +13
5. Lincoln +12
5. F. Roosevelt +12
7. Truman +10
8. Kennedy +5
8. Monroe +5
10. J. Adams +4
10. Arthur +4
10. Grant +4
13. Cleveland +3
14. J.Q. Adams +2
14. Carter +2
14. L. Johnson +2
14. Van Buren +2
18. H.W. Bush +1
18. Madison +1
18. Polk +1
18. Taylor +1
22. Coolidge -1
22. Garfield -1
22. Jackson -1
22. Taft -1
26. W.H. Harrison -2
26. Wilson -2
28. B. Harrison -3
28. McKinley -3
28. Obama -3
31. Clinton -4
32. Reagan -5
33. Harding -6
33. Tyler -6
35. Hayes -7
36. Fillmore -8
36. Nixon -8
38. Hoover -10
39. W. Bush -13
40. Pierce -14
41. Buchanan -15
41. A Johnson -15

The results are interesting, to say the least. The only president to appear on no one's best or worst lists was Gerald Ford. Seems as though there are a handful of names stratified highly above everyone else at the top, and a pretty clear handful anchored at the bottom. Oddly enough, exactly one half of the 42 presidents mentioned received an overall positive aggregate score and one half received an overall negative score.

[ScottieF]

Putting FDR above Lincoln = insane.

Close race. They're easily my top two.