February 14, 2008
IF W WERE DEAD AND THE GIPPER ALIVE THE NUMBERS WOULD BE REVERSED:
Reagan regarded as best president (Hsin-Yin Lee, February 14, 2008, Washington Times)
While millions of voters have been casting ballots to show support for their favorite 2008 presidential candidates, a poll released yesterday showed that the public regards Ronald Reagan as the best president since World War II and George W. Bush the worst.Posted by Orrin Judd at February 14, 2008 12:14 PMThe research, conducted by Harris Interactive, also found a strong partisan split. When asked to pick the best president since and including Franklin D. Roosevelt, half of the Republicans chose Mr. Reagan, compared to 6 percent of Democrats. Overall, Mr. Reagan won 25 percent support, while in second place, Mr. Roosevelt had 21 percent of votes.
It's still astonishing that W. is listed as the worst. LBJ? Carter? C'mon, those are gimmees.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at February 14, 2008 1:15 PMClinton, also a good president, is 2nd worst in the poll. It's just the freshness of the partisan passion.
Posted by: oj at February 14, 2008 1:22 PMMost of my friends look at me incredulously when I say that Bush will probably go down as a reasonably good president, and possibly a very good one. In fact, it might go further: If the Middle East democratizes or semi-democratizes sometime after he's gone it will probably be very hard for honest historians to deny him credit for getting the ball rolling. Note how even liberal historians give Reagan credit now that the Cold War is over.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at February 14, 2008 11:06 PM