Presidential rankings according to 65 historians and professional observers of the presidency surveyed by the cable channel C-SPAN. Participants ranked each president by 10 leadership attributes.
President: 2009 rank, 2000 rank
Abraham Lincoln: 1, 1
George Washington: 2, 3
Franklin D. Roosevelt: 3, 2
Theodore Roosevelt: 4, 4
Harry S. Truman: 5, 5
John F. Kennedy: 6, 8
Thomas Jefferson: 7, 7
Dwight D. Eisenhower: 8, 9
Woodrow Wilson: 9, 6
Ronald Reagan: 10, 11
Lyndon B. Johnson: 11, 10
James K. Polk: 12, 12
Andrew Jackson: 13, 13
James Monroe: 14, 14
Bill Clinton: 15, 21
William McKinley: 16, 15
John Adams: 17, 16
George H.W. Bush: 18, 20
John Quincy Adams: 19, 19
James Madison: 20, 18
Grover Cleveland: 21, 17
Gerald R. Ford: 22, 23
Ulysses S. Grant: 23, 33
William Howard Taft: 24, 24
Jimmy Carter: 25, 22
Calvin Coolidge: 26, 27
Richard M. Nixon: 27, 25
James A. Garfield: 28, 29
Zachary Taylor: 29, 28
Benjamin Harrison: 30, 31
Martin Van Buren: 31, 30
Chester A. Arthur: 32, 32
Rutherford B. Hayes: 33, 26
Herbert Hoover: 34, 34
John Tyler: 35, 36
George W. Bush: 36, NA
Millard Fillmore: 37, 35
Warren G. Harding: 38, 38
William Henry Harrison: 39, 37
Franklin D. Pierce: 40, 39
Andrew Johnson: 41, 40
James Buchanan: 42, 41