Barack Obama Ranked 12th Best President

Barack Obama ranked 12th best U.S. president in a survey released Friday of presidential historians from C-SPAN, the public affairs broadcasting network.

That placed him well above his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, who ranked a meager 33rd out of 43. It also put him above George H.W. Bush, 20th, and Bill Clinton, 15th. The only recent president Obama ranks below is Ronald Reagan, who claimed ninth place.

Up at the top, of course, was Abraham Lincoln; George Washington came in second.

James Buchanan, who served in the White House on the eve of the Civil War, consistently ranks as the worst president for his failure to prevent southern secession.

The survey was conducted with 91 presidential historians. It was first conducted in 2000 and then again in 2009.

"Once again the Big Three are Lincoln, Washington and FDR - as it should be," said Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University. "That Obama came in at number 12 his first time out is quite impressive. And the survey is surprisingly good news for George W. Bush, who shot up a few notches."

Edna Greene Medford, a professor of history at Howard University, was somewhat less impressed with Obama's standing.

"Although 12th is a respectable overall ranking, one would have thought that former President Obama’s favorable rating when he left office would have translated into a higher ranking in this presidential survey," she said.

"I am especially surprised that he was ranked at 7th in moral authority (despite heading a scandal-free administration); 19th in administrative skills; and 8th in economic management (despite having helped to save the auto industry and significantly reducing unemployment)," she continued. "But, of course, historians prefer to view the past from a distance, and only time will reveal his legacy."

Richard Norton Smith, an author of political biographies, suggested that the rankings tell us as much about what appeals to historians as the presidents themselves.

"The golden age of the American presidency, according to this survey, is 1933-1969," he said. "Five presidents from this era each rank in the top ten which tells you something about the criteria that historians tend to use. It reinforces Franklin Roosevelt's claim to be not only the first modern president but the man who, in reinventing the office, also established the criteria by which we judge our leaders."

To conduct the study, C-SPAN asked the respondents to rank each president 1-10 on 10 different qualities:

• Public Persuasion
• Crisis Leadership
• Economic Management
• Moral Authority
• International Relations
• Administrative Skills
• Relations with Congress
• Vision/Setting An Agenda
• Pursued Equal Justice for All
• Performance Within the Context of His Times

All rankings of qualities were combined together and given equal weight to determine the ranking.

Read the complete rankings>>

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore