Professors rank President Obama 15th best president

"A new poll of leading presidential scholars ranks Barack Obama as the 15th best president of the United States, just below Bill Clinton but ahead of Ronald Reagan.

The Siena College poll, which surveyed 238 presidential scholars at U.S. colleges and universities, asked scholars to rate the nation’s 43 chief executives on 20 attributes ranging from legislative accomplishments to integrity and imagination.

In the overall ranking, Obama rated two places below Clinton, who was 13th best, and three better than Reagan, who is ranked as the 18th best.

Franklin D. Roosevelt again earned the top spot, as he has every time since the poll was first conducted in 1982. He and the Mount Rushmore presidents — Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — have consistently been the top five presidents in the poll’s findings.

Obama’s 15th ranking is slightly higher than other presidents who have taken office since the poll started nearly 30 years ago. Most start out at about number 20, said Siena statistics professor and poll director Douglas Lonnstrom.

“[Obama’s] doing a little better, but he’s generally in the same ballpark,” he said.

While he ranked high on traits like imagination (6th), communication ability (7th) and intelligence (8th), Obama rated poorly ratings on background (32nd), which was composed of traits like family, education and experience.

Lonnstrom said the main factor that gives a president a top-five or top-10 ranking is his accomplishments — and an all-around high ranking in most categories.

FDR, for example, ranks in the top 10 for every category except integrity, he said.

“The experts really are looking for consistency, a president who is looking good across most of these categories,” he said.

Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, was ranked at number 23 in 2002 — the last time Siena’s presidential expert poll was conducted — but has since dropped to number 39, qualifying him as one of the five worst presidents. Bush came in at number 42 — second to last — on issues such as handling the U.S. economy, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence. (Warren G. Harding was rated the least intelligent president).

Bush joins Harding, Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, all of whom have consistently ranked as the worst presidents since the poll started, in the bottom five.

Several other presidents also saw movement in their ratings this year. Bill Clinton moved up five places, from No. 18 in 2002 to No. 13 today; John F. Kennedy also moved up, from No. 14 to No. 11.

Carter, Reagan and Nixon all dropped in the rankings this year — Carter dropped seven spots, from No. 25 in 2002 to No. 32 now; Reagan dropped two spots, from No. 16 to No. 18; and Nixon fell four spots, from No. 26 to No. 30."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39283.html

Give him another year and he will be looking up to see the bottom of the barrel.
That's direct from my Giddyup Poll.

Any poll of people who are not "leading presidential scholars" (and/or not based upon questionable and irrelevant criteria like background or perceived imagination and intelligence) is likely to yield quite different results. Either way, ranking Presidents is sort of silly. MOST of the praise or blame a President receives has little to do with them (personally) and much more with what's going on at the time and how their entire government administration is perceived by the public.

My Giddyup Poll is very precise when judging the suckedness of Politicians.
Thank you berry mucho!

A very large poll was taken yesterday and Obama was voted to be one of the worst.

Today, he sounded a lot likje Jimmy Carter did at the same time in his Presidency.

They can add Hussein to that list because this guy sucks more than a hoover!

polls are a dime a dozen, ask enron or haliburtion employees and they would probably rate President W at the top,,,lol

Not all polls are a dime a dozen. You should poll the US military what they think about Obama giving a "firm pullout date" that increases the chance of our military failure and death of our soldiers.

And I am not sure what you are laughing about above. The poll was the election by the US citizenship where millions of citizens sent a clear message that Obama policies were a failure.

Obama still has a long way to go. The analysts should not attempt
to make any judgements on a sitting president's ranking until the
fat lady sings.

The election really was not a referendum on Obama or his policies.
The election was about individual races and who the voters thought
would best represent them.

The next presidential election will be in 2012.

One thing for sure though...Bush will go down in history as one
of the worst if not the worst and Clinton will be ranked near the top.
Carter will be down there in the cellar with Bush and Reagan will be
somewhere in the middle with Nixon. Obama? Too early to tell but he
has made some marks that's for sure.

There were many political analysts and pollsters who stated specifically that a major reason the population voted the way they did was a referendum on Obama. This factor specifically caused a large turnout to try to turn the course America was taking. Many of the Republicans were elected for the sole purpose of resisting Obama's ability to spend America to death.

This is a little old the thought still holds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1edRckgxCk

Yeah but I think they were full of it. Had we not had the spendng
then the economy would still be in the Bush toilet. No responsible
person would choke the recovery with drastic spending cuts. It is
going to be a balancing act and not without sacrifice but EVERYONE
agrees that dramatic spending was required to avoid a more serious
economic recession/depression.

Now how to get back to fiscal equilibrium? First, economic recovery
and job growth.....

the same americans of which 14 percent are illiterate and the majority who use Colbert as their main 'news source'?...lol

Presidential scholars would be one of the polls I would consider more reliable than the crowd of Americans who have been led to believe that the president isn't a citizen or is a Muslim. At least they go by facts.

Obama has been a disaster !...an utter failure...definitely one of the worst presidents of all time...tuesday's election proves my point...in less then 2 years...he has found a way to totally dismantle the Democratic party...anyone who thinks that tuesday was NOT a referendum on Obama and his policies...is living in a dream world...the country was saying...

no more bailouts
no more taking over of auto companies
no more taking over of the student loan program
no more reading terrorists their miranda rights
no building of any mousque at ground zero
no more lawsuits against Arizona
no more stimulus
no more debt
no more spending money we don't have
no more goverment run healthcare
no more telling us what we can eat
no more telling us what we can drink
no more foodstamps
no more poverty
no more unemployment
no more appologies for this great country
and lastly...NO MORE LIBERALISM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“no more bailouts”

The bailouts were started under the Dippic and helped avoid a total collpase of our economy.

“no more taking over of auto companies”

GM recently announced profits that have helped pay back to US taxpayers so that now we only own 40% of them v the 61% we had. It is and will pay dividends to us.

“no more taking over of the student loan program”

The student loan program enabled more kids to attend college without paying higher rates and the cetralization of it helped cut admin costs. This is important since tuitions are rising.

“no more reading terrorists their miranda rights”

If you don’t honor the Bill of Rights then I suggest you get yer arse out of this country.

“no building of any mousque at ground zero”

It’s not a Mosque but a community center with several uses...including a Muslim prayer room. So what?

“no more lawsuits against Arizona”

The Arizona immigration law is un-Constitutional. Back to the drawing board.

“no more stimulus”

The stimulus monies created jobs and help unemployment stay under 10%…imagine it worse and us in a complete depression right now.

“no more debt”

In 2009 the debt was lowered by 8%. That’s a start.

“no more spending money we don't have”

Then make the superrich pay their share then. End the tax cuts for the 2% in this country that make 45% of the salaries. Screw them.

“no more goverment run healthcare”

So, how are YOU going to cover 45 million Americans who have no HC insurance? Let them die? How are YOU going to stop the runaway Big HC and Big Pharma who have ripped us off for years.

“no more telling us what we can eat”

Who is saying that?

“no more telling us what we can drink”

Who is saying that?

“no more foodstamps”

So, “let them eat cake” then eh?

“no more poverty”

I guess that will end when you starve the poor to death.

“no more unemployment”

We’ve had good job growth in the private sector. It’s getting better but may take a while to recover. Any person of minimal eonomics knowledge will tell you that employment is the last thing to recover after a severe recession.

“no more appologies for this great country “

Who’s asking for us to apologize?

“and lastly...NO MORE LIBERALISM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

It’s not a “left” or “right” thing, it’s about the correct thing. Your T-baggery talking points are NOT plans. T-bagheads have no plans to answer to complex issues so it's only about politics and their hatred for all that don't look or sound like them.

In a nutshell...lol.

aint it interesting how they chose THIS administration to become passionate about those already existing phenomena?

"they" are very demanding, aren't "they"?

Whats that suppose to mean?

Enough with crying about the tax breaks already. There is no separate bracket for the top 2%. The top 15% fit into the the highest bracket and they already pay 35%.

a new 10% bracket was created for single filers with taxable income up to $6,000, joint filers up to $12,000, and heads of households up to $10,000.
the 15% bracket's lower threshold was indexed to the new 10% bracket
the 28% bracket would be lowered to 25% by 2006.
the 31% bracket would be lowered to 28% by 2006
the 36% bracket would be lowered to 33% by 2006
the 39.6% bracket would be lowered to 35% by 2006

There are the tax cuts. It was across the board. The highest bracket did get a 1.6% bigger cut but they were paying almost 40%.

facts and figures don't get you very far here.

this section is driven by emotion and conspiracy theories.