[Jean S]

I think the answers are a result of the respondent’s educations. Kennedy and Lincoln are the most mentioned in public school history classes. I would guess that if they had included Martin Luther King in this presidential poll he would have received many votes too, for the same reason, although he was never president.

[libertylover]

I think the answers are a result of the respondent’s educations. Kennedy and Lincoln are the most mentioned in public school history classes.

To be thought of as a "great president" by large numbers of peoples requires that the president in question be in office at a time when the nation itself is in great peril, and of course we have to come through it OK, as we've always done. Thus Lincoln (Civil War), Roosevelt (WWII), and Kennedy (Cuban missile crises) are always near the tops of these lists.