Perhaps, but DDE was a fair President at best. He was extraordinarily fortunate to become President when all the planets aligned and ALL was right with the US.
He inherited a robust post war economy at a time when the vast majority of Americans were fat and happy. The middle class was exploding, industry was at it’s zenith and trade unions had not exploited their power as they would do into the 60’s and beyond.
The 50’s were arguably the single best decade this country has ever experienced and it had actually very little to do with who was President at the time.
SPOT ON !
It had to do with who, or *what* (”a Commie”), WASN’T President.
Possibly. But Ike didn't make the kind of serious mistakes that could have ended that peace and prosperity. Later presidents did.
It's somewhat impressive how historians who looked down on Ike when he was president, came to see him as an excellent administrator.
Though Eisenhower made some serious mistakes, general competence counts for a lot.
The prosperity of the fifties didn't end with a crash, and Ike didn't get us into any major wars, so I don't begrudge him credit for that.
Not my point at all. To claim that one candidate was preferable to another is just unsupportable. There is no basis from which to prove the claim. Thus it is nothing more than his opinion. Eisenhower did some marvelous things, as well as, some less than marvelous things. But we can quantify his presidency. We cannot quantify how a Taft presidency would have unfolded. Of course if Taft could have won. In reality it’s most likely that Adlai Stevenson II would have defeated Robert Taft. After all, it had been 24 years of drought for the Republicans when it came to holding the Executive Branch.