Liberal and Conservative Raters
The Murray-Blessing 1982 survey asked historians whether they were liberal or conservative on domestic, social and economic issues. The table below shows that the two groups had only small differences in ranking the best and worst presidents. Both groups agreed on the composition of nine of the top ten Presidents (and were split over the inclusion of either Lyndon B. Johnson or Dwight D. Eisenhower), and six of the worst seven (split over Jimmy Carter or Calvin Coolidge). Conservatives placed Democrat Harry S. Truman at a higher ranking.
| Rank | Liberals (n=190) | Conservatives (n=50) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Abraham Lincoln | Abraham Lincoln |
| 2 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | George Washington |
| 3 | George Washington | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
| 4 | Thomas Jefferson | Thomas Jefferson |
| 5 | Theodore Roosevelt | Theodore Roosevelt |
| 6 | Woodrow Wilson | Andrew Jackson |
| 7 | Andrew Jackson | Harry S. Truman |
| 8 | Harry S. Truman | Woodrow Wilson |
| 9 | Lyndon B. Johnson | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| 10 | John Adams | John Adams |
| ... | ||
| 30 | Calvin Coolidge | James E. Carter |
| 31 | Franklin Pierce | Richard Nixon |
| 32 | James Buchanan | Franklin Pierce |
| 33 | Andrew Johnson | Andrew Johnson |
| 34 | Ulysses S. Grant | James Buchanan |
| 35 | Richard Nixon | Ulysses S. Grant |
| 36 | Warren G. Harding | Warren G. Harding |
Read more about this topic: Historical Rankings Of Presidents Of The United States
Famous quotes containing the words liberal and, liberal and/or conservative:
“The power of consumer goods ... has been engendered by the so-called liberal and progressive demands of freedom, and, by appropriating them, has emptied them of their meaning, and changed their nature.”
—Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975)
“Barnard’s greatest war service ... was the continuance of full-scale instruction in the liberal arts ... It was Barnard’s responsibility to keep alive in the minds of young people the great liberal tradition of the past and the study of philosophy, of history, of Greek.”
—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)
“When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It’s a remarkably shrewed and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)