Presidents by Crisis Management

[vcczar]

This ranking isolates crisis-level situations and then rates their handling of these situations by "complete, relatively error-free resolution," "Complete, but imperfect resolution," "Unresolved crisis but put handles it about as well as any president could," "Disastrous handling of a crisis." Presidents were docked points if they didn't face a crisis. Presidents that faced many crises had the greatest opportunities for gaining/losing points:

Here is the ranking (many presidents are actually tied):

1. Lincoln
2. FDR
3. Truman
4. Washington
5. Jackson
6. T Roosevelt
7. Polk
8. Wilson
9. Eisenhower
10. Reagan
11. J Adams
12. Jefferson
13. Nixon
14. Obama
15. Madison
16. Monroe
17. McKinley
18. Biden **shouldn't count** (tied with next three)
19. Tyler
20. GHW Bush
21. JFK 
22. Garfield **shouldn't count** (tied with next seven)
23. Cleveland, 1st term
24. Cleveland, 2nd term
25. WH Harrison **shouldn't count**
26. B Harrison
27. Taft
28. JQ Adams
29. Arthur
30. Coolidge
31. Van Buren (tied with next 3)
32. Taylor
33. Fillmore
34. Clinton
35. Ford
36. Hayes
37. Grant
38. LBJ
39. Harding
40. Carter
41. A Johnson
42. GW Bush
43. Trump
44. Hoover
45. Pierce
46. Buchanan

[MrPotatoTed]

2 hours ago, vcczar said:

This ranking isolates crisis-level situations and then rates their handling of these situations by "complete, relatively error-free resolution," "Complete, but imperfect resolution," "Unresolved crisis but put handles it about as well as any president could," "Disastrous handling of a crisis." Presidents were docked points if they didn't face a crisis. Presidents that faced many crises had the greatest opportunities for gaining/losing points:

Here is the ranking (many presidents are actually tied):

1. Lincoln
2. FDR
3. Truman
4. Washington
5. Jackson
6. T Roosevelt
7. Polk
8. Wilson
9. Eisenhower
10. Reagan
11. J Adams
12. Jefferson
13. Nixon
14. Obama
15. Madison
16. Monroe
17. McKinley
18. Biden **shouldn't count** (tied with next three)
19. Tyler
20. GHW Bush
21. JFK 
22. Garfield **shouldn't count** (tied with next seven)
23. Cleveland, 1st term
24. Cleveland, 2nd term
25. WH Harrison **shouldn't count**
26. B Harrison
27. Taft
28. JQ Adams
29. Arthur
30. Coolidge
31. Van Buren (tied with next 3)
32. Taylor
33. Fillmore
34. Clinton
35. Ford
36. Hayes
37. Grant
38. LBJ
39. Harding
40. Carter
41. A Johnson
42. GW Bush
43. Trump
44. Hoover
45. Pierce
46. Buchanan

Doin' my boy W dirty, as usual.  Haha. ;c)

[vcczar]

Just now, MrPotatoTed said:

Doin' my boy W dirty, as usual.  Haha. ;c)

I'm just putting down general consensus. He didn't resolve the Great Recession. He gets credit for a quick military stage victory in Iraq, but loses points for unresolved occupation which has often been compared to Vietnam. He gets credit for a quick response to terrorism, but the War on Terror is unresolved. His response to Hurricane Katrina, which was poor enough to become a metaphor for bad responses natural disasters is also included. 

I can understand liking him outside of this, but his record is there. Possibly it can change in a few years, but we've also had 13 years to analyze his presidency. 

[pilight]

The problem with all these rankings is the assumption that a president handling the circumstances they got well or poorly means they would have also handled another president's equally well or poorly.  This particular rating is especially useless in that regard.  What Jimmy Carter faced was so completely different from what Thomas Jefferson faced that comparing them is impossible.

[vcczar]

10 hours ago, pilight said:

The problem with all these rankings is the assumption that a president handling the circumstances they got well or poorly means they would have also handled another president's equally well or poorly.  This particular rating is especially useless in that regard.  What Jimmy Carter faced was so completely different from what Thomas Jefferson faced that comparing them is impossible.

The way I try to get around that is that I weigh the crises differently. Lincoln gets more points for facing a Civil War than Carter gets for handling all his crises combined. 

[pilight]

3 hours ago, vcczar said:

The way I try to get around that is that I weigh the crises differently. Lincoln gets more points for facing a Civil War than Carter gets for handling all his crises combined. 

That still doesn't mean Lincoln would have handled Carter's circumstances well

[vcczar]

1 hour ago, pilight said:

That still doesn't mean Lincoln would have handled Carter's circumstances well

That's true. Who knows if Obama or Trump would have handled the Civil War even better than Lincoln did. Nevertheless, just about every president faced a major crises and they either rose to the occasion or did not. I would assume those that seemed to meet their issues and handle them well would likely have performed well in about any era. I can't see Lincoln, for instance, fumbling in another time. I can't see Buchanan flourishing in a crisis during another time.