Obama ranked 15th best US President

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- dEsPeraTe cRaNky -
Barack Obama has been ranked as the 15th best president of the United States, two ranks below Bill Clinton in a new poll which is topped by Franklin D Roosevelt.

Obama's immediate predecessor, George W Bush, has been ranked at 39 out of 43 presidents of the US listed in the Siena College poll that surveyed 238 presidential scholars at colleges and universities.

The poll had asked scholars to rate the nation's 43 chief executives on 20 attributes ranging from legislative accomplishments to integrity and imagination, a media release said.

Incidentally Obama is ranked three places above Ronald Reagan, who is placed at 18th spot in the ranking. For the fifth time since its inception in 1982, the Siena College Research Institute's (SRI) Survey of US Presidents found that experts rank Franklin D Roosevelt as the top all time chief executive.

The 238 participating presidential scholars round out the top five in order with Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Teddy Roosevelt had, more than any other president the "right stuff", and tops the collective ranking of a cluster of personal qualities including imagination, integrity, luck, intelligence, background, and being willing to take risks.

Lincoln, according to the experts, demonstrated the greatest presidential abilities while FDR ranks first in overall accomplishments, it said.

"In nearly 30 years, the same five presidents have occupied the first five places with only slight shuffling.

Despite decades of new research on former presidents and the accomplishments or lack thereof of the current chief executives, scholars display amazingly consistent results," according to Douglas Lonnstrom, Professor of statistics at Siena College and one of the study's directors.

"Only eight names have appeared in the second five over the years. Wilson and Truman hold onto membership in this club while Kennedy, John Adams and Jackson fell, Eisenhower holds on and Madison and Monroe have seen their stock rise," he said.

Obama, while highly rated on imagination (6th), communication ability (7th) and intelligence (8th) scores poorly on background (family, education and experience).

George W Bush, had entered the survey at 23rd when the study was last conducted one year into his first term.

Just one year after leaving office, the former president has found himself in the bottom five at 39th rated especially poorly in handling the economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence.
 
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