Which Dead President would you vote for?

[Darth Gojira]

Either way, we win.

[Baron Scarpia]

Lincoln, in a heartbeat. The more I read about him, the more I admire him. Would that we had politicians of his kind today!

Wilson was a racist asshole who set back race relations in this country 30 years. He's the only absolute no on the list for me.

[Joe]

Wilson was a racist asshole who set back race relations in this country 30 years. He's the only absolute no on the list for me.

Who would not have been elected had it not been for TR's selfish Bull Moose run.

[Perinquus]

Teddy Roosevelt is my favorite president overall. He was incredibly smart, an adroit politician, and a no-nonsense man of action. But he had his faults. He could be ungenerous - putting it mildly - toward those with whom he disagreed. He ran on the Bull Moose ticket because he got back from his African safaris and was distressed to find that Taft was softer on the trusts than TR thought he should be, and also was disenchanted with other aspects of Taft's performance. Taft was very hurt by the bitter nature of some of Roosevelt's criticisms, for the two had been good friends previously. TR also behaved deplorably after war broke out in Europe in 1914. TR engaged in a kind of behavior that I roundly condemn, and which Carter and Clinton and active in following today - past presidents continually sniping at, condemning, and criticizing sitting presidents. I just don't think that's a good idea, for all kinds of reasons. Roosevelt held nothing back in excoriating Wilson. He publicly called him spineless, a coward, a milksop, and just about every other uncomplimentary name he could think of. Eventually, when the U.S. entered the war, TR wanted some role in the conflict, perhaps a military command, and he wrote to Wilson, basically crawling on his belly to apologize. But Wilson, understandably, had been so embittered by Roosevelt's personal attacks on his character that he wouldn't give TR the time of day.

I notice a lot of support for the other Roosevelt. I'm a lot less impressed with FDR than I am with his cousin Theodore. FDR was a great wartime leader in many respects. He certainly motivated the country well for the fight. He was a very charismatic and canny politician. He was dead right in supporting England in a time when American opinion was mostly isolationist. And he was absolutely right in insisting on a Germany first strategy. However, he had some serious faults as a commander in chief. He could make some pretty awful blunders, and when he committed to them, nothing could shake his commitment. An example is the famous "unconditional surrender" declaration. There wasn't a professional military man in the Allied high command who though that was a good thing to say publicly, since it galvanized German resistance, and made even those Germans who were anti-Nazi feel they had no choice but to throw in with Hitler and fight to the last. Churchill thought it was a blunder. And even Stalin, for whose benefit Roosevelt apparently made the statement (to assure the Soviet leader that the western Allies were committed, and would not try to make a separate peace with Germany), thought it was a very bad move, and tried, without success, to talk FDR into moderating his statements on the matter.

FDR could also be even more selfish and more ungenerous to his political opponents than TR was, he was just more careful and less public about it. Harry Truman, many years after he left the presidency, when asked about Roosevelt, said in an interview "Inside he was the coldest man I ever met. He didn't care about you or me or anyone else in the world on a personal level, as far as I could see."

Also, because of his role in the war, a lot of people today are not aware of just how politically liberal and left of center FDR really was. His leftward leaning political views had the effect of making him blind to some of the worst aspects of the Soviet Union, and entirely too trusting of the Russians. FDR surrounded himself with men of like views, and as a result, his administration in general, and the state department in particular, was absolutely rife with Soviet sympathizers, and even a large number of paid Soviet agents. FDR's second vice president, Henry Agard Wallace, was so liberal and so pro-Soviet, that he became politcally untenable as a running mate in '44 and Rossevelt very reluctantly agreed to drop him for Truman. Wallace was naive regarding the Soviets, however, not sinister. He ran in '48 as a 3rd party candidate, but in later years came to realize, and indeed admitted publicly (much to his credit), that his Progressive Party had actually been a tool of Moscow.

FDR just flat out did not understand what kind of man he was dealing with in Stalin. He was very charismatic, and very used to charming people into doing what he wanted. He thought to use this famous charm on the Soviet dictator, and really made himself look quite foolish. He figured he could do business with "Uncle Joe", if he could just "get at" him. Stalin, however, was a borderline paranoiac, extremely clever, and also one of the most completely ruthless men ever to lead a nation. Roosevelt was completely transparent to him, and in fact he appears to have regarded Roosevelt with something rather akin to comtempt for FDR's sycophantic attempts to cozy up to him.

And his attempts to schmooze the Soviet tyrant alarmed and dismayed the ally who was actually reliable - Churchill. Churchill, who foresaw quite clearly that the Russians would gobble up Eastern Europe, and would fail to honor their treaty commitments to allow free and fair elections, tried to warn FDR over and over again. Rossevelt, whose socialist outlook led him to trust the Russians, not only wouldn't listen, he apparently came to be rather irritated with Churchill for the British PM's repeated attempts to caution him and persuade him to block the Soviet advance. Churchill was practically tearing his hair out with frustration. Toward the end of the war, with victory in sight, he wrote: "I moved amid cheering crowds , or sat at a table adorned with congratulations and blessings from every part of the Grand Alliance, with an aching heart and a mind oppressed by forebodings". At Teheran Churchill told future PM Harold Macmillan: "Germany is finished, though it may take some time to clean up the mess. The real problem now is Russia. I can't get the Americans to see it." Churchill confided to his physician, Charles Wilson, later Lord Moran, who write in his diary: "What I found so shocking, is that the the Americans, the PM is the villain of the piece. They are far more skeptical of him than they are of Stalin."

FDR was in many respects a great leader. He did lead the country well overall in WWII, but because of the war, and because he died in office, a kind of halo has grown up around his memory. The truth was that FDR had a lot of faults to go along with his virtues, and he made some pretty egregious blunders throughout his term in office, some of which were at least partly in consequence of his commitment to he socialist New Deal ideology.

[Joe]

I won't earn any brownie points for this, but FDR's legacy would probably be shit if not for WWII. He spent money, a lot of it, on a huge problem that failed to disappear on account of that spending. Not that he doesn't deserve the praise he gets for leading America through WWII the way he did.

[Axis Kast]

Of those listed here, only Theodore Roosevelt really attracts my support or empathy. While I feel he could have been less interested in conservation, the man held views similar to mine concerning the proper conduct of business and foreign policy.

Lincoln comes in a distant second, largely on merits of not being associated with people like Jefferson or Washington, who's ideas would be today considered colloquial at best and degerative at worst. While I acknwoledge that his Presidency ran virtually antithetical to his stated views, the man still held values to which I cannot personally relate. The same is true of Washington and Jefferson.

[Vympel]

TJ.