| RANK | NAME | MEAN |
| GREAT | ||
| 1 | George Washington | 4.92 |
| 2 | Abraham Lincoln | 4.87 |
| 3 | Franklin Roosevelt | 4.67 |
| NEAR GREAT | ||
| 4 | Thomas Jefferson | 4.25 |
| 5 | Theodore Roosevelt | 4.22 |
| 6 | Andrew Jackson | 3.99 |
| 7 | Harry Truman | 3.95 |
| 8 | Ronald Reagan | 3.81 |
| 9 | Dwight Eisenhower | 3.71 |
| 10 | James Polk | 3.70 |
| 11 | Woodrow Wilson | 3.68 |
| ABOVE AVERAGE | ||
| 12 | Grover Cleveland | 3.36 |
| 13 | John Adams | 3.36 |
| 14 | William McKinley | 3.33 |
| 15 | James Madison | 3.29 |
| 16 | James Monroe | 3.27 |
| 17 | Lyndon Johnson | 3.21 |
| 18 | John Kennedy | 3.17 |
| AVERAGE | ||
| 19 | William Taft | 3.00 |
| 20 | John Quincy Adams | 2.93 |
| 21 | George Bush | 2.92 |
| 22 | Rutherford Hayes | 2.79 |
| 23 | Martin Van Buren | 2.77 |
| 24 | William Clinton | 2.77 |
| 25 | Calvin Coolidge | 2.71 |
| 26 | Chester Arthur | 2.71 |
| BELOW AVERAGE | ||
| 27 | Benjamin Harrison | 2.62 |
| 28 | Gerald Ford | 2.59 |
| 29 | Herbert Hoover | 2.53 |
| 30 | Jimmy Carter | 2.47 |
| 31 | Zachary Taylor | 2.40 |
| 32 | Ulysses Grant | 2.28 |
| 33 | Richard Nixon | 2.22 |
| 34 | John Tyler | 2.03 |
| 35 | Millard Fillmore | 1.91 |
| FAILURE | ||
| 36 | Andrew Johnson | 1.65 |
| 37 | Franklin Pierce | 1.58 |
| 38 | Warren Harding | 1.58 |
| 39 | James Buchanan | 1.33 |
|
The number listed above is the mean score of all the scholars' rating of each president. On this scale, five is the highest possible score. |
||
Seems about right...though I might make him trade places with Teddy R.
Calvin Coolidge at average. Reagan at near great.
Yep, this must be the same bunch of historians who signed that letter that Clinton shouldn't be impeached.
Any survey that doesn't have Calvin Coolidge in the top three is suspect, imho.
Eisenhower should be lower - they are including his military service as part of his presidency. Had it not been for the decision to drop the bomb on Japan, Truman would have been lowered.
Kennedy is too high.
Wilson is too high.
Teddy Roosevelt? Johnson?
John Adams is a bit low, IMHO. Nixon, despite Watergate, has a more positive legacy that he should receive more credit for. Hey, he met Elvis.
Clinton's where he belongs...in the forgotten middle.
Carter is WAY high. Buchanan still probably did more positive things while in office than he did.
What's VERY surprising is Polk as "near great"..I concur, but I'd wager that 7 out of 10 HS seniors today wouldn't know who Polk was..
No way Johnson was above average.
Placing Impeached Bill Clinton above Nixon who resigned for the good of the Office and Country is a disgrace.
LBJ ahead of JFK?? Wow!
President Ford should be recognized for pardoning Nixon. It probably cost him several positions on the chart and any chance at being elected president, but it eliminated much of the devisiveness that was in the country at the time and helped the country to get on with its business.
I could nitpick this list, but the one that jumps out at me as a glaring injustice is Nixon as "Below Average". It seems to me that Watergate is being given a bit too much weight here, as usual. Give it another generation.
Truman & Reagan. The bookends of the Cold War. Both should be higher.
bump
Only Nixon could go to China.
Nixon started the cancer initiative.
I would Rank Reagan Higher than FDR.
I would put clinton in the failure column. He had TWO chanches and for lack of a better term, blew it.