Best Incumbent President who lost

Best (policy-wise) incumbent President who lost election


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I'm torn between Taft and the elder Bush, leaning more towards Taft on account of Bush leaving the Kurds high and dry for Saddam to massacre.
 
A quick note to everyone, the poll is closing election day, so consider this a countdown of sorts.
 
Shit, thought about it a bit and I'd like to change my vote. Ford followed the Hippocratic Oath: he did no harm. JQ Adams was actually a positive force for the country.
 
Shouldn't this include Grover Cleveland (I)?

Bush 41 deserves credit for sticking the landing on the collapse of the USSR. A competent President, though I disagreed with him on many points.

Carter's image as a weak, ineffective loser is being gradually, partially rehabilitated. He got some good stuff done (the Panama Canal treaty, SALT II, the first wave of deregulation, no foreign wars, fiscally responsible, strong on civil liberties), and many (though by no means all!) of his problems were due to events beyond his control. I suspect that in another generation he'll end up just below the middle of the pack.

But the OP asked about *policy*, and, really, there's no choice -- it's John Quincy Adams.

In terms of policy, Adams was, hands down, the best President between Washington and Lincoln, and should be on anyone's list of the top three. He was a farsighted nationalist who wanted a country-wide network of paved roads -- basically the 1830 version of the Interstate Highway System -- and canals. He tried to give America a national university, an functional banking system, a real national currency, and the New World's first effective industrial policy. He was the last President to sincerely push for decent treatment and fair dealings with the Indians -- and he might have made it stick, if he hadn't been replaced by a fanatic Indian-hater after just four years. He was the first President to openly opposed the rising Slave Power. His tariff system pissed off the South, but helped catalyze the first great wave of American industrialization. In terms of foreign policy, he was a great diplomat who presided over a period of peace and good relations with pretty much everyone.

A lot of his policies didn't get passed because of fanatic opposition from Jackson and the Democrats; basically, they were determined to make him fail so that Jackson could take over. But in terms both of what he did and what he sincerely tried to do, he's the best one-term President to lose re-election /ever/.


Doug M.
 
I voted Adams the first because of how much I dislike Jefferson. Adams had his problems but Jefferson screwed the pooch as President, and was a massive hypocrite to boot.

And the Louisiana purchase was a federalist idea before somebody mentions it.
 
Herbert Hoover. I'm sure that if he had 4 more years, he could have done something. After all, he was leaning towards something like a New Deal at the end of his term.
 
A question of character

If you're talking character rather than policy, JQ Adams still comes out near the top. Diligent, prudent, painstaking, reliable, honest, and absolutely honorable -- the whole "corrupt bargain" thing is one of the most boggling slanders ever laid against a sitting President.

Mind, you can certainly argue that Adams had /too much/ character -- if he'd been a little less upright and a bit more of a wheeler-dealer, he probably would have had a better shot at re-election.

Also, he was a bit of a tormented soul, constantly beating himself up over whether he had lived up to the impossibly high standards set by his parents and himself. Didn't really find happiness until quite late in life, as a senior Congressman fighting the slave power in the House.

Still: if he was at least half a failure (and, yeah, he was), he's one of the most admirable failures in American history.



Doug M.
 
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