Siena Presidential Scholar President Rankings: Are They Biased?

Very interesting, if no surprise, and not a word about statistical significance! Excellent.

Is there any way of looking at the rankings of Historians by whether they vote D or R? What about the rankings of those who were dumb enough to rate the current President, when surely a “too early to tell” is the appropriate response?

One interesting correlation not mentioned: What about times when the White House and Congress were controlled by different parties? For example, L. Johnson gets top marks for working with Congress. But wasn’t the Congress (where Johnson had been Senate Leader) under Democrat control? The same with F. Roosevelt during the WWII era. In contrast, R. Reagan handled the Democrat controlled Congress during the PATCO strike (and subsequent firings; further R. Reagan also got the T. O’Neill controlled Congress to reduce overall taxes creating the single greatest economic growth period in American History.

Need more research.

I have about as much confidence in the professorial opinions expressed in this survey as I do in the integrities of the College’s governing board and the state office holders of its home state. Not much.

Excellent fodder for posts and discussions; but lousy material upon which to rely. Just another reason to distrust academics.

SeniorD:
Your expectations are way too high. I think this delphi type approach simply captures prejudices and relative ignorance. For example, by definition shouldn’t Presidents who failed to be re-elected automatically drop to the lower end of the list – unless there is some strong counter-argument? Similarly, shouldn’t Presidents whose parties received increased support during mid-term elections receive higher rankings than those who who lost support? Seems to me that your approach of looking for empirical markers of how their contempraries saw them has validity – despite its time-boundedness.

The only good President that you chaps have ever had was Washington G. Even dear old King George III eventually concluded that Washington was a great man. Though I suppose one could make a case for Harding.

On second thoughts, one could make a case for Eisenhower too, and Reagan. Even Truman. But as for the rest……

dearieme, thank you for your second thoughts. Btw, are you sure we couldn’t loan you Jimmuh Carter?

I thought professors would vote to put Woodrow Wilson PhD on top.

dearieme:
The US has had moreorless the same number of great Presidents as Britain has had great PMs – barely enough to make up for the duds.

Public employees should not be allowed to vote. Acceptance of a government-funded job, pension, or welfare check should trigger automatic rescission of all voting rights for that person and their dependants.

This ranking makes me think of the history professor at my now ex-college and his assessments of FDR. FDR, simply summarized in his opinion, was the most brilliant man of all time. He was smarter than any economist or businessman even though he had no experience in either–proved by his handling of the economy and his approach to taxation during the 1930s. He was a better strategist than any of his generals during World War II, even though he had no experience here either–proved by the North African Campaign. And on and on ad nauseum. The scholars involved in this ranking obviously concur, and probably have no better evidence.

It occurs to me that a view of FDR as “godlike” is an amalgam of personal prejudices and Arthur Schlesinger’s version of FDR. We are not likely to get a realistic view of FDR until Schlesinger is long gone, his books are out of print, and college history professors have to find new material for their courses.

In North Korea one can read newspaper accounts of how Dear Leader visited the Pyongyang Zoo, and saved a group of children from a bear on the loose. I view most of the slobbering over FDR as something similar even if it is a tad more sophisticated–simply substitute “Laissez Faire” for bear.

Hey, I just looked at the table showing worsts and bests, and it is, or would be, hilarious. FDR for handling the economy is best, but Hoover is worst, and amazingly FDR just took programs Hoover had already concocted and put them into action! I guess FDR should be listed under “luck”; but no, here we find Washington — and his lucky winter at Valley Forge of course. How about Lincoln and ability to compromise–wow, think of how many Americans might have died during the Civil War without all that compromise! What a fabulous mess this ranking is.

I apologize to all for getting so worked-up about this ranking, but it brings back memories of the ninnies in PolySci and History during my occasional tours of duty in academia.

Andrew Johnson was a Democrat? Not in my history class.

Good call, Doug M. My list shows A. Johnson to be a National Union member, which I suppose is Republican, Washington to be a Federalist (is that Republican?), Jefferson to be a Democratic-Republican…what a mess.