I put Ike as a solid #2 behind Reagan in terms of my all-time favorite Presidents.
Combined with his job during WWII, he was the Greatest American of the 20th Century.
When he ran Eisenhower was regarded as a moderate with Robert Taft representing the conservative GOP wing. Taft would have pulled us out of NATO in 1953, as if Stalin’s Soviet Union would have been good boys and not taken advantage of the resulting weakness of Western Europe.