John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Having recently checked out Where They Stand by Bob Merry, I've given some more thought to my previous rankings; I ended up with the same top five (bending against "popular will" slightly), though my top ten's now altered.
Merry has categories of popular mandate, the highest of which is to win (at least) two elections, and then see your party win the next one. There are really six in this category -- Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR and Reagan. (Technically nine, but Madison and Monroe didn't really have much of an opposition party, and McKinley's "third" win was really Roosevelts'.) Of these six, five made my top ten (I just can't stomach calling Andrew Jackson a great President, for the usual reasons.)
I found myself with this top ten:
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin D Roosevelt
4. Theodore Roosevelt [1]
5. Dwight Eisenhower [2]
6. Thomas Jefferson
7. John F Kennedy [3]
8. Ronald Reagan
9. Harry Truman [4]
10. William McKinley
[1] OK technically he's only won 1904, and Taft won 1908 on his coattails -- but he also got more votes than the incumbent Taft in 1912, and was the nominee presumptive when he died in 1919. In terms of popular mandate, he's really in his own category.
[2] Won two elections on his own, and his would be same party successor lost narrowly -- not as high a mandate as some I rank lower, but still impressive enough. (This is a category shared by Ulysses S Grant, Bill Clinton, and -- weirdly -- Richard Nixon.)
[3] FWIR, Merry seems to think he's not reliably rankable; go figure
[4] This guy used to be higher at #6, but I had to admit his second term was pretty bad (biggest accomplishment was really keeping the Korean War from becoming... well, something far worse than OTL). That said, he did achieve some real greatness in his first term (end of WWII, standing firm against Stalin, desegregation of military, etc), so I'd keep him in the top ten.
Merry has categories of popular mandate, the highest of which is to win (at least) two elections, and then see your party win the next one. There are really six in this category -- Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR and Reagan. (Technically nine, but Madison and Monroe didn't really have much of an opposition party, and McKinley's "third" win was really Roosevelts'.) Of these six, five made my top ten (I just can't stomach calling Andrew Jackson a great President, for the usual reasons.)
I found myself with this top ten:
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin D Roosevelt
4. Theodore Roosevelt [1]
5. Dwight Eisenhower [2]
6. Thomas Jefferson
7. John F Kennedy [3]
8. Ronald Reagan
9. Harry Truman [4]
10. William McKinley
[1] OK technically he's only won 1904, and Taft won 1908 on his coattails -- but he also got more votes than the incumbent Taft in 1912, and was the nominee presumptive when he died in 1919. In terms of popular mandate, he's really in his own category.
[2] Won two elections on his own, and his would be same party successor lost narrowly -- not as high a mandate as some I rank lower, but still impressive enough. (This is a category shared by Ulysses S Grant, Bill Clinton, and -- weirdly -- Richard Nixon.)
[3] FWIR, Merry seems to think he's not reliably rankable; go figure
[4] This guy used to be higher at #6, but I had to admit his second term was pretty bad (biggest accomplishment was really keeping the Korean War from becoming... well, something far worse than OTL). That said, he did achieve some real greatness in his first term (end of WWII, standing firm against Stalin, desegregation of military, etc), so I'd keep him in the top ten.