It’s a Presidents’ Day Celebration

In honor of Presidents’ Day, I’m displaying a list of the top 10 greatest Presidents as determined by the Siena College Research Institute Presidential Ranking Survey.  Results from that 2010 poll can be found here.

In their survey, the top rated President was Franklin D. Roosevelt, followed by Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson in the Top 5.  My list is in alphabetical order.

Who do you consider to be the country’s greatest President and why?  Take the poll and explain your answer.

Realignment in America

Are the two major political parties in the United States currently realigning themselves?  Realignment or a realigning/critical election, has been defined by Walter Dean Burnham, as an event that occurs every 30-36 years.  When realignment does occur, the political parties tend to reinvent themselves in order to stay relevant.  They do this by adjusting their political party platforms while the country or the political electorate changes.  Sometimes, however, it is the critical election that adjusts the way the voting behaves.  For the most part, political scientists agree that the United States has had five party systems.  The first party system somewhere between the creation of American political parties to the time of Democratic-Republican Party dominance (1789-1828).  The second party system occurred during the height of the Democratic Party strength and the somewhat competitive Whig Party (1828-1860).  The third party system took place with the emergence of the Republican Party and the election of Abraham Lincoln and lasted until the late 1890s (1860-1896).  In fourth party system, the parties aligned themselves based on the economy, as Democrats became the party of unions and an agrarian mindset, while the Republicans captured big business and industry within their ranks (1896-1932).  With the fifth party system, the Democrats took on the role of supporting the New Deal, while the Republicans opposed the FDR platform.  From the time of the New Deal, Democrats have supported public policy solutions created by the federal government.  Republicans supported solutions initiated by state governments.  This party system has lasted since 1932 (1932-Present).    The two major parties have continued to promote their party platforms from a federal vs. state government angle.  Since both parties have not changed since 1932, what would it take for the American party system realign once again in a sixth party system?

Incumbent Presidential Vote Totals

President Barack Obama, as of this post, received 60,892,345 popular votes in his Presidential re-election bid.  This was down from the 69 million votes+ he received in 2008.  This is not the first time an incumbent President who was   re-elected for another term received fewer popular votes in his next go around than in his previous election.  The last that this happened was in 1944 when Franklin D. Roosevelt received fewer votes in his fourth bid for the Presidency than in his third.  The last time before that?  Roosevelt once again in 1940.  Here are the victorious incumbent Presidents and their popular vote totals in back to back elections.

Andrew Jackson

1828:  642,533; 1832:  701,780

Abraham Lincoln

1860:  1,855,593; 1864:  2,218,388

Ulysses S. Grant

1868:  3,013,790; 1872:  3,598,235

William McKinley

1896:  7,102,246; 1900:  7,228,864

Woodrow Wilson

1912:  6,296,284; 1916:  9,126,868

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1932:  22,821,277; 1936:  27,752,648; 1940:  27,313,945; 1944:  25,612,916

Dwight D. Eisenhower

1952:  34,075,529; 1956:  35,579,180

Richard Nixon

1968:  31,783,783; 1972:  47,168,710

Ronald Reagan

1980:  43,903,230; 1984:  54,455,472

Bill Clinton

1992:  44,909,806; 1996:  47,400,125

George W. Bush

2000:  50,460,110; 2004:  62,040,610

Barack Obama

2008:  69,498,215; 2012:  60,892,345

What accounts for the drop in Obama’s total from 2012 to 2008?