# Who would have made a good US President? (Realistic answers please) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 25, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423 "2014-08-25T02:45:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/21 "2014-08-25T07:31:46Z")
Madeleing Albright came up in several conversations around the time of Hillary Clinton’s bid, usually along the lines of “and how about Albright? She never ran, did she?” “Foreign-born, not elligible” “Oh.” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/22 "2014-08-25T08:07:08Z")
RFK, I think. ---
**Author:** ![orangeapples](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@orangeapples](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orangeapples)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/23 "2014-08-25T08:09:22Z")
John Kerry Al Gore Michael Dukakis Walter Mondale ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/24 "2014-08-25T08:16:47Z")
What about General Colin Powell? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/25 "2014-08-25T08:31:52Z")
> [@Namkcalb](#): > > What about General Colin Powell? What, that yes-man? ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/26 "2014-08-25T08:35:41Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > What, that yes-man? If he’s a yes-man, what are Obama and Bush He’s a centrist who can show he can think on his feet. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/27 "2014-08-25T09:37:42Z")
I think Fiorello H. La Guardia could have been a great president, but his leadership style wasn’t needed at the time he was active. If term limits had been around in Roosevelt’s time, he might have been a great veep for whoever ran after Roosevelt’s second term. But he wasn’t sedate when the country needed Eisenhower, and anyway, he died in 1947. He wouldn’t have been better than Roosevelt, and probably wasn’t electable because of his ethnicity before Roosevelt. I wouldn’t have voted for Goldwater when he originally ran, but if he’d run in the primary against Reagan, and I’d been eligible to vote, I would have crossed party lines that primary to try to get Goldwater on the ticket in the general election. Reagan made Goldwater look like Jerry Brown. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/28 "2014-08-25T11:19:52Z")
MInority opinion for sure, but Jimmy Carter WOULD have made a good president in terms of internal policies. He got screwed by the Iranian revolutionaries and an inability to deal with it. I don’t think any other president at that time would have had a clue how to deal with it, there had not been a serious fundamentalist Moslem uprising before. I believe he would have done excellent things for the US, but he didn’t have a chance. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/29 "2014-08-25T11:50:31Z")
> [@cjepson](#): > > I’ll go with Benjamin Franklin. He might actually not have made a good President, but it would have been interesting. He would’ve spent the first few months of his first term incapacitated with Gout and the rest of it dead. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/30 "2014-08-25T12:39:12Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I kind of doubt that any person on earth could do a good job as President right now. Simply put, the President of the USA has too many duties, oversight of too many departments and offices and bureaus, too many symbolic duties (such as attending funerals), and too many national and world events to comment on. This line always gets trotted out whenever there is a weak Democrat in office. It was a commonplace during the Carter administration, vanished during the Reagan administration, and hasn’t been seen since. Until now. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/31 "2014-08-25T13:17:34Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I kind of doubt that any person on earth could do a good job as President right now. Simply put, the President of the USA has too many duties, oversight of too many departments and offices and bureaus, too many symbolic duties (such as attending funerals), and too many national and world events to comment on. > > It’s certainly true that Obama has made the problem worse for himself by insisting on posing as an expert on everything, including things where the President shouldn’t be involved. (The Zimmerman/Martin case comes to mind.) However, the job of President would be overwhelming even for someone who didn’t wade into such fiascoes. I say Mitt Romney could very well have been a much better president than Obama. Obama’s biggest problem isn’t his tendency to stick is nose into every little thing, it’s his tendency to _not_ stick his nose in when legitimate US interests are at stake. Look at pretty much every major foreign affairs incident in the last few years: the US has been slow to respond, and when we do respond we tend to support the wrong guys (eg, the Syrian rebels, now known as ISIS, who are so bad they’ve even made Al Qaida step back and say, “Dude, that’s some messed up shit, there!” As for the Ukraine, this has been Russia’s game from day 1, with the US/NATO responses consistently being several days late and several dollars short. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/32 "2014-08-25T14:08:03Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > John Wayne would’ve been effective in the role, much like Reagan. John Wayne was a much a right winger as Reagan, but much more racist. He would have been a disaster. My list of shoulda beens: Walter Mondale. Damn fine person on the right side of every issue I can think of. Hubert Humphrey. Shoulda won in 1968, but in that chaotic year he fell victim to the southern strategy. Another committed progressive who would have led the nation forward and continued building the Great Society. Joe Biden. Awesome guy with all the right instincts. A man with the common touch and who actually works on behalf of the little guy. ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/33 "2014-08-25T14:11:35Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > This line always gets trotted out whenever there is a weak Democrat in office. It was a commonplace during the Carter administration, vanished during the Reagan administration, and hasn’t been seen since. Until now. Reagan got through his tenure by completely ignoring about 70% of those “duties” They rolled him out for speeches but otherwise he wasn’t much involved in his own presidency. Bush II was the same kind of president. Speech maker in chief. Obama might be criticized for not delegating more but at least he’s involved and can intelligently converse on the issues, something neither Reagan or GWB could manage. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/34 "2014-08-25T14:20:39Z")
Alexander Hamilton. Henry Friendly. ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/35 "2014-08-25T14:34:34Z")
As to who could have but didn’t get the chance to be a great president, I think we could have used more leaders in the style of Eisenhower. Less partisan and more pragmatic. Ever since Reagan national politics has been about how to do as little as possible. I would love to see someone with a great endeavor and the will to complete it run again. Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Kennedy are often mentioned as among the great presidents. I don’t think that’s because of policy, politics or personal style. I think it is because of WWII, the interstate and the space program. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the US needs to invest $3.6 Trillion in the next 5 years to have a sound national infrastructure. The last two Democratic presidents have said as much as well, but nobody put the effort into doing anything about it. If a presidential hopeful from either party ran on this one issue I would back them 100%. Maybe we will see Anthony R. Foxx run on a modified “Build America” platform in a few years. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/36 "2014-08-25T14:37:34Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > I say Mitt Romney could very well have been a much better president than Obama. Obama’s biggest problem isn’t his tendency to stick is nose into every little thing, it’s his tendency to _not_ stick his nose in when legitimate US interests are at stake. Look at pretty much every major foreign affairs incident in the last few years: the US has been slow to respond, and when we do respond we tend to support the wrong guys (eg, the Syrian rebels, now known as ISIS, who are so bad they’ve even made Al Qaida step back and say, “Dude, that’s some messed up shit, there!” As for the Ukraine, this has been Russia’s game from day 1, with the US/NATO responses consistently being several days late and several dollars short. To elaborate a bit, the Obama Administration completely mismanaged the US response to the whole “Arab Spring” situation. We knew from the very beginning that the uprising was being driven by Muslim fundamentalists, who would almost certainly be far more hostile to the US than the current strongmen were/are. So what do we do? We support the rebels, who as it turns out were indeed being supported by Muslim fundamentalists, who are indeed far more hosile to the US than the former governments were. So now Libya has completely disintegrated, large swaths of Syria are under the rule of a jihadist state, and the conflict has spilled into Iraq, where the same jihadist state is committing genocide against whatever religous and ethnic minorities they don’t like. Good call, guys :smack: A Republican president (like Romney) would have quietly supported the strongmen, and today the Mideast would be far more stable than it currently is. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/37 "2014-08-25T16:04:00Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > That’s funny. As I remember it, Nixon _did_ get to be president, escalated things in Vietnam (not to mention neighboring countries) considerably, yet still somehow managed to lose the war. Your memory is either not very good or you didn’t pay much attention in history class. It was LBJ that horrifically escalated the Vietnam war. Nixon actually recognized it was a lost cause and got us the hell out. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/38 "2014-08-25T16:11:08Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > A Republican president (like Romney) would have quietly supported the strongmen, and today the Mideast would be far more stable than it currently is. When has that ever worked in the long run? At best, we propped up a dictatorship and it holds on to power for a few more years. But eventually all of the dictatorships we supported ended up collapsing. And the governments that replaced them were all hostile to the United States because of our support for the dictator’s regime. I give credit to the Obama administration for at least trying something new. On the more pragmatic level, if there’s a civil war between two sides that are both evil, then we might as well side with the one that looks likelier to win. And in most cases, when a dictatorship has reached the point where there’s fighting in the streets, the dictatorship’s days are numbered. People keep fighting in a situation like that because there’s no point in giving up - dictators are not forgiving. Finally, let’s not deny the obvious. The issue here isn’t really about whether the Obama administration should have been backing the governments or the rebels. Or staying out of it. This is really about domestic politics and the Republicans were prepared to declare whatever position Obama took was the wrong one. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/39 "2014-08-25T16:11:14Z")
Barry Goldwater > [@Barry Goldwater](#): > > Richard Nixon is the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423/40 "2014-08-25T16:50:38Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Your memory is either not very good or you didn’t pay much attention in history class. It was LBJ that horrifically escalated the Vietnam war. Nixon actually recognized it was a lost cause and got us the hell out. No, Nixon sabotaged the Paris peace talks for political gains, and then continued to fight the war for several more years before starting up those same talks again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-made-a-good-us-president-realistic-answers-please/696423.md?page=3)