Almost 100 years since the last great Republican President...

[SaveElmer]

Teddy Roosevelt..

Look at the Republican litany of failure since then

Harding
Coolidge
Hoover
Nixon
Ford
Reagan
Bush
Bush

Only Eisenhower ranks above this tale of mediocrity and incompetence

Compare to the Democrats...

Wilson
Franklin Roosevelt
Truman
Kennedy
Johnson
Clinton

And the one Democrat that maybe didn't have a successful Presidency goes on to become a world class humanitarian and NOBEL peace prize winner...Jimmy Carter


No wonder the Republicans are in such a foul mood all the time!!!

[Lautremont]

1. And the Republican response to this:

"Clinton! But he got a blow job!" Case closed!

[stepnw1f]

3. Then Those That Say it Are Stupid

and should be treated as such.

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. They are stuck on stupid! nt

[rinsd]

2. Well define sucessful Presidency

Is it the furthering of the party of President's overall ideological goals?

Is it stewardship of the nation?

And in the above do we break it down into the sub groups of foreign and domestic policy?

[SaveElmer]

5. I always base a Presidency...

On its overall impact...

Of course each of these men had flaws, each did something I disapproved of...but on balance are were successful in that the country was better off the day they left office than the day they entered it.

[DavidDvorkin]

4. There was nothing wrong with Carter's presidency

The press destroyed him, but in fact he was head and shoulders above the slimeball who succeeded him.

[SaveElmer]

6. I agree...

I am partially basing this on public perception.

[Nabia2004]

7. Quote "When they call the roll in the Senate, ..."

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer "Present" or "Not guilty." – Theodore Roosevelt

http://kenfran.tripod.com/teddy.htm

[SaveElmer]

8. The guy did have a sense of humor...

Probably would have been drummed out of the Republican Party by now...

[pinto]

9. And Teddy was pretty much a Democrat...

[otherlander]

10. I really can't forgive Johnson....

but overall, yeah, the Democrats have a better record.

[NJ Democrats]

11. Yes, it has been

TR was a great Prez.

[Conan_The_Barbarian]

12. How'd Johnson make that list?

hey hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today... ring any bells?

[SaveElmer]

15. It's not that simple...

Certainly VietNam was a mistake, but Johnson did not pursue it for motivations of selfishness, greed, or to shore up the bottom line of his contributors. He was wrong to pursue it, but he did so because he thought it was what was necessary...and the stress of those decisions eventually killed him. Listen to some of the Johnson tapes and you can hear the anguish in some of them as he agonized over these decisions.

And domestically, he was more successful than FDR at getting social legislation through COngress...not to mention his heroic efforts on behalf of Civil Rights...

[otherlander]

17. That's what I was wondering...

:shrug: Maybe the civil-rights thing? That doesn't really make up for it, though, does it?

[LittleClarkie]

14. Would Teddy be a Dem now? Or Ike?

I'd been thinking about that very thing.

It's telling that the yahoo group "Republicans for Integrity" have as their mascot Teddy. The Republicans for Kerry morphed into that group. I used to hang with them as their token Dem.

[jpevahouse]

16. President Lincoln

He is without question our most popular president. During Lincoln's time Republicans were the "liberals" and Democrats "conservatives". I don't know when the switch occurred? I grew up during the Eisenhower admin and he was geneally well respect. I saw an old interview with Eisenhower a few years ago and was reminded of his diginfied, candid and insightful personality. He spoke very negatively of war and miltarization saying the goal of our country should be to avoid war at all costs.
Wilson was one of the worse in many ways, an ardent racist. The worse period of racism since before the Civil War occurred during the Wilson administration.

[WI_DEM]

18. Hell, I considered Carter to be a successful president

He brought peace between Israel and Egypt, passed the Panama Canal Treaties, had a national energy program which was working, spoke out strongly for Human Rights, Preserved more land than any previous president due to the Alaskan Lands Bill and passed a strong Ethics bill for federal officials--there's more but that is a good start.