But beyond that, people generally rate more recent presidents higher than the earlier ones they may only have heard of in school. That goes for historians as well as ordinary people.
Some of the most significant and influential presidents of the past have been downgraded because they are now regarded as racist or expansionist or war-mongering. Polk and Jackson undoubtedly left more of a mark on the country than Obama or Clinton or the Bushes, but it's become difficult to say that nowadays.
And of course the job has gotten harder with time. A below average 20th or 21st century president has to have skills greater than an average 19th century president just to survive in office.
That's changed a bit recently, though. If your country's the world's one remaining superpower and you've got the world's most powerful army and most innovative economy, there's a limit to how much damage you can do it as president.
So it's fair to ask if recent presidents like Clinton or Obama were really better than Cleveland or McKinley, who had to deal with real challenges in their own time and managed to cope with their difficulties with lesser resources than today's presidents have.
I suspect that this poll was designed to make Obama come out looking good. Intangibles like "Public Persuasion," "Moral Authority," "Vision/Setting an Agenda," are weighed equally with "Economic Management," "Crisis Leadership," "International Relations," "Administrative Skills," and "Relations with Congress."
Obama scores higher on the abstract vision and persuasion stuff than he does on actually getting things done. "Pursued Equal Justice for All" is thrown in as a gift: they aren't going to give the first Black president a bad mark for that, even if it's not a 100% accurate assessment of his administration.
[ Of course, political bias is involved. How could somebody seriously expect Obama to be in the top 10 or top 12 of all presidents? ]
Given that 4 of them in the past few decades have served 8 years each, (12 x 4 = 48) + (4 x 4 = 16) = 64 years of adult voter experience.
Guess the average age of respondents must be at least 82 if we went with 18 years + 64.
I’m only including the double terms of Reagan, Clinton, W and Ovomit. This, like every liberal lie, shows how superficial all this nonsense is. Which is perfect to sell to the Beyonce/DNC/liberal/SJW low-IQ crowd. No doubt it is being passed on via Twitter and FakeBook as we type.