Who Really Was "The Greatest President We Never Had?"

1. Fiorello LaGuardia, mayor of New York from 1934-45

2. actor Jimmy Stewart

3. Colin Powell

4. Abigail Adams (if the Constitution would have allowed a woman to run back then)

5. The Governator (if you change the Constitution to allow him to run)

6. Rep. John Lewis (D.-GA), civil rights hero

7. North Carolina governor Jim Hunt
 
Adlai Stevenson (he's pretty much the last governor of Illinois who didn't go to jail) and Al Gore would be my picks.

Stevenson was very, very smart, and would probably have dealt with the leadup to Vietnam War better than Eisenhower or Kennedy (remember he ran in 1960 as well). He might have begun some version of LBJ's Great Society programs earlier as well.

Hate to nitpick, but that would be Jim Edgar, actually.

Stevenson or Eisenhower is a really really tough pick for me. I tend to think that Ike was a better President than Stevenson would have been. But if the choice was Stevenson vs. Robert Taft, I'd vote for Stevenson in a heart beat. And if it was Stevenson vs. Taft/McCarthy ala Wolfpaw's timeline, I'd vote for Adlai even quicker.
 
Adlai Stevenson the elder - WJB's VP candidate in 1900, not his 1950s grandson. I'm hoping WJB wins and gets offed in 1901 by the crazy person...

Colin Powell in 2000.

Possibly Earl Warren, although he'd be missed at SCOTUS.

Pigasus.
 
Douglas Macaurther... I love cartoonishly evil; vainglorious presidents... plus he would really improve Nixon's reputation (ie you think Nixon was bad, remember that douchebag Macaurther)
 
Charles Evans Hughes, Wendell Willkie, Nelson Rockefeller, Howard Baker or Colin Powell for the Republicans; Adlai Stevenson, RFK, Gary Hart, Mario Cuomo for the Dems.
 
1.

4. Abigail Adams (if the Constitution would have allowed a woman to run back then)

Correct me if I am wrong, I didn't think that there was no rule barring women from becoming President, just them voting for president.

Also a Theodore Roosevelt Jr./Robert Taft ticket in 1948 or 52 would have been both awesomely amusing, had they both survived.
 
While I love Wallace's domestic and social outlook, from a foreign policy standpoint, he'd have been an absolute disaster, looking on as the Soviets had their way with South Korea, Japan, etc.

I have to question this. The man became very critical of Stalin as the truth about came out - he was certainly an anti-communist (what most Cold War rhetoric meant by "anti-communist" was "warhawk Russophobe"), and supported the war in Korea, IIRC.

So what's so disastrous about an attitude to the USSR other than unrelenting suspicion? The fact is, it never was - couldn't ever be - any kind of real threat to democracy in America or western Europe, so the various quixotic proxy contests each side involved themselves in the developing world are hardly a matter of America's life and livelihood. I, for one, think a bit of understanding shown towards the other power that can destroy the world with a button-push is a good thing.

So, Wallace. I'm not American, I'm not terribly qualified to comment in terms of my historical knowledge, but the man was stood up courageously for good causes and had been unfairly maligned.
 
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Charles Evans Hughes, Wendell Willkie, Nelson Rockefeller, Howard Baker or Colin Powell for the Republicans; Adlai Stevenson, RFK, Gary Hart, Mario Cuomo for the Dems.


Hughes is one of my favourite "also rans" but I don't know if he'd be considered great had he won.

Actually, isn't greatness as much a matter of opportunity as anything? Had Lincoln become President in 1880, or FDR in 1920, would either of them be more than a footnote?
 
Charles Evans Hughes; Wendell Willkie; Jack Kemp; Nelson Rockefeller; Thomas Dewey; Pete duPont after 1900. Before 1900: Daniel Webster; John Frémont; DeWitt Clinton.

Then, the flip side, or the nightmare team: William Jennings Bryan; Michael Dukakis; Henry Wallace; George McGovern
 
Charles Evans Hughes; Wendell Willkie; Jack Kemp; Nelson Rockefeller; Thomas Dewey; Pete duPont after 1900. Before 1900: Daniel Webster; John Frémont; DeWitt Clinton.

Then, the flip side, or the nightmare team: William Jennings Bryan; Michael Dukakis; Henry Wallace; George McGovern


What have you got against Bryan? He seems a nice enough guy to me. And I doubt if remonetarising silver would have had any terrible consequences.

If you're bothered about his attitude to teaching evolution, that was widely shared at the time, and not a matter about which the Federal government had anything much to say. He could have done little to promote it from the White House, and probably wouldn't have tried.
 
He's a socialist, an isolationist and a pacifist. In such a tense foreign policy situation, you need someone whose grasp of foreign policy is more Kissingerian than Palinesque, and Bryan falls in the latter category.
 
He's a socialist, an isolationist and a pacifist. In such a tense foreign policy situation, you need someone whose grasp of foreign policy is more Kissingerian than Palinesque, and Bryan falls in the latter category.


Was he actually a pacifist? As I understand it he supported the Spanish-American War and Wilson's Mexican intervention. The latter in particular is bad news, but not likely to be any worse than OTL.

If he's POTUS during WW1 he'll just stay out. It doesn't take a Kissinger to do that, just someone who has made his mind up. And there's no reason to think the US would be any worse off - though GB and France might.

Regarding socialism, I'm not sure he can really be classed as that, and in any event is any Congress of his era likely to pass socialist measures?
 
Nixon, in 1960.

I don't know if he would have strictly followed Eisenhower's cautious example on Vietnam. Then again, how "cautious" was Ike's stance on the Vietnam War once it was under way? Oh, it's a puzzlement.

I take it back. I think. Was seasoned, semi-paranoid Nixon better for the country in 1968, or would he have been better for the country in 1960?




How about TDR with Gerald Ford's life-span and FDR's four electoral victories? That takes him to 1921...
 
George McGovern would have been a great President. With McGovern there would have been no Iran nonsense. With out that no Reagan and the rise of the right which means Bush is never President. Than America is not in the bad shape she is in right now. America missed out big time in 72 by voting for tricky Dick
 
George McGovern would have been a great President. With McGovern there would have been no Iran nonsense. With out that no Reagan and the rise of the right which means Bush is never President. Than America is not in the bad shape she is in right now. America missed out big time in 72 by voting for tricky Dick

Unfortunately, only a majority of the good citizens of Massachusetts and D.C. understood that...
 
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