Who is the Best President of the Last 100 Years?

[QUENTIN]

This is kinda like asking "What is the best limb to have chopped off?" Best is hard to quantify when they're at their best very bad.

Not a single president in the last hundred years has upheld the Constitution and represented the American people's interests.

The only individual to hold executive office and actually do a good job in the last century was VP Henry Wallace. Not surprisingly, he's also the most popular executive in American history. Otherwise they range from harmful and bad to fucking abysmal.

 

[Annie]

I thought about him. We can add him informally.

1 vote to Ike.

What is the point in a '100 year' poll, without all possibilities given? All missing:

TR
Taft
Wilson
Harding
Hoover
Truman
Eisenhower
Johnson
Nixon
Ford
Carter

I know limited to 10, but should have changed the parameters, no?

 

[KittenKoder]

Bush Jr., why ...

He taught us the worst possible way to run our country. A lesson that should have taken more than 100 years, but he managed to teach it to us in only 8.

 

[Avatar4321]

Bush Jr., why ...

He taught us the worst possible way to run our country. A lesson that should have taken more than 100 years, but he managed to teach it to us in only 8.

you really dont have any historical perspective do you?

 

[Oddball]

I hafta go with:

1) Harding (Gotta love a guy who holds poker night at the White House)
2) Coolidge
3) Taft
4) Eisenhower

 

[KittenKoder]

you really dont have any historical perspective do you?

Yes I do, but I just don't care about it. Bush taught us how bad our government could get, are you denying this or do you just not care about recent history at all? Bush may not have been the only one, but it just shows, we will always repeat history, and Bush repeated a lot of history in just 8 years, that's a great accomplishment, even if it was all historical mistakes.

 

[Silence]

History, and the american people themselves, have already spoken.

There's only one dude up there who won four massive landslide elections in a row, defeated german fascism, japanese imperialism, won a world war, made the United States a superpower, and saved american capitalism from collapse.

 

[Chris]

History, and the american people themselves, have already spoken.

There's only one dude up there who won four massive landslide elections in a row, defeated german fascism, japanese imperialism, won a world war, made the United States a superpower, and saved american capitalism from collapse.

Yes.

 

[Annie]

Yes.

Massive landslides? Get a grip.

 

[Red Dawn]

I dont see anyone that fits that discription on the list. Truman and Wilson won the world wars. They arent on the list and didnt wind massive landslide.

Truman wasn't even vice president until 1944. Are you sure you want to stick with the ridiculous assertion that Truman won world war 2? That's like saying Poppy Bush won the cold war, because the iron curtain fell twelve months after he took office. Poppy stood on the shoulder of giants. And Truman was and awesome senator during world war two, rooting out corrupt capitalists who were profiteering in war and blood. But, you're just being an FDR-hating partisan hack to say Truman won the war.

Teddy Roosevelt made us a world power, he isnt on there.

This is probably a deliberate misreading of what I wrote. The US became a world power in the early part of the 20th century. I said we became a super power in the 1940s. Google super power if you're unclear on the concept.

There is only one, maybe two, true capitalist on the lists on the list and they didnt do any of the other stuff.

I understand. Anyone who isn't a far rightwing, lasszie faire, libertarian economist would be a marxist to you. You're world view is about as narrow as it gets.

My vote goes for Reagan. Simply because out of the choices up there he is the only guy that was good.

He is the "only guy that was good" ???

Wow, that's a ringing endorsement. That's all you got?


Here's a flashback in history for you. Even though Ronnie Reagan was of fighting age in world war two, he sat it out on the sidelines unlike many of his peers who put life and limb on the line. Ronnie stayed in california and made a few recruiting films for the military. I'll never understand why Reagan is treated as such a heroic figure. The man was a coward who sat out the greatest conflict in our nations history, short of the civil war.

The other two dudes on our poll who were from that era actually put their money where there mouth was. JFK served on PT-109 as everyone knows. And all four of FDRs sons served in combat with distinction. No trying to get them into the Texas National Air Guard.

 

[Oddball]

Massive landslides? Get a grip.

"Saved American capitalism"?!?!?!?!!??????????

 

[Red Dawn]

Massive landslides? Get a grip.

Let's first start off by defining "landslide"

Bush supporters are fond of looking back on their ancient heydey, when Reagan beat Carter by 9%, and Poppy Bush beat Dukkakis by 7.8%. Bush supporters will universally call those "landslide" elections.


Now......


1932 Election

Roosevelt 57.4%
Hoover 39.7%


1936 Election

Roosevelt 60.8%
Landon 36.5%


1940 Election

Roosevelt 54.7%
McNary 44.7%


1944 Election

Roosevelt 53.4%
Dewey 44.9%



Annie, are you going to come back and admit you were wrong? Or, are you going to dissapear and pretend you never posted on this thread? Or worse yet, are you going to try something ridiculous and disingenuous to spin your way out of this?

 

[Missourian]

This is a landslide....RealClearPolitics - Electoral Map

--------

Reagan-----------Mondale



.​

 

[Oscar Wao]

I think we're speaking in terms of electoral, not popular votes.

 

[Oscar Wao]

Massive landslides? Get a grip.

"Saved American capitalism"?!?!?!?!!??????????

More like "instituted the beginnings of American socialism."

 

[elvis]

I would choose Nixon because he was a realist. Unfortunately, he isn't on the list.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I'd have to go with Coolidge, but the last 100 years has been mostly unimpressive in terms of Presidents.

 

[Oscar Wao]

Coolidge, for "best."

 

[Ralph]

Who do you think?

Harry Truman, simply because, unlike certain other nameless parties, he accepted full responsibility for his leadership decisions. The Buck stops here....it did not magically disappear WITH THE LAST ADMINISTRATION.....CLEARLY SOME ADMINISTRATIONS don't want the BUCK of responsibility and are VERY PROGRESSIVELY looking into the rear view mirror of history to place blame on the bad circumstances of their own decision making abilities or parrot some antiquated social engineering failure of the 1930's that turned a market correction into a government manipulated decade long recession....the GREAT DEPRESSION.

No this man......actually PULLED the trigger in order to save millions of American lives....and then said, God Forgive Me.......as he accepted full and sole responsibility thereof. A few political drones could learn a few lessons from the leadership skills of a true Statesman...even if some of those decisions were proven to be historically wrong. The Truman Doctrine for One.....yet He made the tough decisions and claimed them.

 

[Sweet Willy]

Coolidge, for "best."

A lady at a DC party once approached Coolidge and informed him that she had just made a wager with another lady that she could get him to say at least three words. Cal smiled and said "you lose."