Nevertheless, the author attempted to rank not only how good the actual Presidents were, but how good the LOSING major party presidential candidate would have fared, making an educated guess from their background, issues they ran on, and what type of stuff they would have encountered during their term.
Not surprisingly, he has several examples where the losing candidate would have made a better president than the actual person who was elected.
There's also extremes on each end, he ranked both Abraham Lincoln and his opponent Stephen A. Douglas as "Excellent" choices in 1860, concluding we would have been in good hands with either man. On the flip side, he ranked both U.S. Grant and his RAT opponent Horace Greeley as "Likely failures" in 1872, basically concluding voters were screwed no matter who which man that election.
I’ve heard of that book. Would you recommend it?
US Grant was a great man who is wrongly maligned by historians for his performance as President (something about him on the History channel tonight I think, they are taking a break from Ancient Aliens BS).
We should have nominated him for a non-consecutive third term in 1880 rather than Garfield (a brilliant man but dirty civil service reform advocate).
Greeley of course, friggin died, and therefore would not have been President, that would have been a mess. I guess B. Gratz Brown would have been President.
Losers who would have been good or at least much much better Presidents, Dole, Goldwater, Nixon 1960, Dewey either time, Hughes, Fremont.
I wish Al Smith had beaten Hoover also no matter what kind of President he would have been.