If we could have any President from Washington till Clinton, which one do you think could best handle the problems we’ve got now–terrorism, foreign relations, the war, disorganization within the gov’t., debt, etc., etc.?
I’m afraid we’ll have to leave out gay marriage . . . (unless we reelect “Nancy” Buchanan).
I’m not a Presidential historian, so I’m not going to take any guesses. Any better-informed Dopers like to take a whack at this one?
Clinton – because he’s a man of the present time and understands the problems we face better than any of his predecessors could. Also, he’s really smart. Best choice, even if he had to be time-travelled here from January 2000 and arrive needing to be briefed on 9/11, etc.
Next choice: FDR. Knew how to figure out what needed to be done and then really sell it to the people.
Have to agree here, Clinton had excellent skills.
Clinton for keeping it all together.
Ike for underastanding the importance of peace and having the ability to form coalitions and build nations.
Teddy for cleaning up dirty elections.
Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.
Okay, maybe not.
Some might say that we already have a guy like Hoover
There’s even rumors that, in his youth, he might have done his share of Hoovering! 
Grover Cleveland
Cleveland was what you’d call a reformer with results, which we definitely need right now. He had a strong idea about what needed to be done and did it. Even though he had a hospitable Congress for much of the times he was in office, it was veto city with him. Cleveland handled the Panic of 1893 rather well, and brought us off bimetallism, for which I’m grateful to this day (though as a coin collector, I regret this a little.)
He treated farmers pretty harshly, stating that you shouldn’t provide aid for them during disasters, which doesn’t sit well with me, and his having sent federal troops to put down a railroad strike in Chicago is a bit much, too. But he investigated the railroads’ acquisition of land, which pissed them off, but the railroads were way out of hand, anyway.
Cleveland lost reëlection in 1888—he won the popular vote, but lost the electoral vote. He famously said, “What’s the point in being elected reëlected unless you stand for something?” Yeah! Of course he came back in 1892 for his second term.
I’d be all for giving Cleveland a third term, if the Constitution permitted it, and if he weren’t dead. We need a strong leader who can clean things up in Washington, and Cleveland showed that he could do it. But since Cleveland can’t run, I’m backing John Kerry.
I’m Chance the Gardener, and I approve this message.
Ronald Reagan (-:
Bound to be an unpopular choice 'round these parts.
Nixon.
No, seriously. He probably had the best grasp of international affairs of any modern President. His domestic program was pretty moderate overall. Sure, you’d have a lot of corruption but at least you’d know who was in charge of it.
Anybody going back to and including Hoover.
Re: Hoover.
Recall that Keynes wrote his General Theory in 1936: prior to that, we didn’t understand how economies functioned (though we had an idea about how individual markets within economies worked). So Hoover really couldn’t help it.
FDR (elected in 1932) understood that the experts didn’t have a clue. So he advocated a process of experimentation: try everything, keep what works, toss out the rest.
What happened? We got a bunch of contradictory policies; luckily the worst ones [NIRA] were tossed out.
This experimental approach wouldn’t have been bad for dealing with our current security challenges.
Still, you can’t beat an analyst like Clinton.
In the words of “Chicago”, America needs you, Harry Truman:
Things are looking bad
I know you would be mad
To see what kind of men
Prevail upon the land you love
America’s wondering
How we got here
Harry, all we get is lies
We’re gettin’ safer cars
Rocket ships to Mars
From men who’d sell us out
To get themselves a piece of power
And he sucks, too.
I don’t know. I can easily imagine Nixon ordering the secret bombing of Iraqi insurgent camps in northeastern Syria. Which would not be a good idea.
But FDR would probably have all the Arab-Americans rounded up and put into internment camps in the Nevada desert. 
John Kerry.
Clinton.
DISCLAIMER: I’m Canadian.
May I include the Kennedy that should have been President? Robert Kennedy was the best of the bunch (based on a tiny bit of personal memory and a lot of reading is words and the sords of others about him). He would have had a fine grasp of foreign affairs–the Kennedy’s of his generation cut their teeth of policy discussions–and I have a strong feeling that he would find better ways to protect us from terrorism than restriting civil liberty.
I’ll add in Clinton as another who could handle the situation well, and I’ll put in a word for both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (maybe together). Jefferson was a genius and somewhat of an idealist, so I imagine he would be more than capable of cutting through the complexities of the situation, and to protect the spirit/symbolism/morality of the nation. Adams was a realist, prone to be a bit hard line about “foreigners”, but savvy on international relations. As a team, they’d be boffo.
They were a team once. From 1797 to 1801, Adams was president and Jefferson was veep – even though they were the leaders of opposing parties, the Federalists and Republicans. (That was before we decided the prez and veep should be from the same party.)
Yes, but they were hardly a team. This was the beginning of party politics and lead directly to the President/Vice President combined ticket. Although they re-established their friendship (always mixed with a large amount of competition) in their later years, at the time they served together, they were political enemies at least.