We received hundreds of emails and calls from people throughout the country about our Survey of American Presidents. We appreciate the interest and we are glad that our study prompted discussion and in some cases debate.   In response to some questions that were raised, we want to clarify several points.

 

We invited scholars that have recently published either peer-reviewed articles on individual presidents or the presidency or full books on individual presidents or the presidency to participate. In addition, we sent invitations to department heads of American universities and colleges in the fields of history and political science and asked them to pass the invitation along to the scholar(s) working in American history or the presidency or to those with expertise or research interest in individual presidents or the presidency.

 

In total, 238 unique individual scholars responded. Each response could include 20 unique ratings of 43 different presidents or a total of 860 entries. Many respondents only rated those presidents with whom they felt they were sufficiently familiar. Considering all twenty rating categories, of possible entries, that is 4760 entries (238 respondents x 20 categories) per president, Washington was the president that was most extensively rated and Garfield was least rated.

 

Missing data was just that, it was missing. The rankings resulted from a score for each president in each category that was based exclusively upon the actual entries offered by participating scholars. The score for each category was the mean score of all respondents and only those respondents that rated that president on that category.

 

No. In this survey we promise those that participate that we, SRI, will guarantee their anonymity and that we will openly report data at the aggregate level. We have reported that data and will respect the participating respondents by honoring our commitment. That said, the sample is what we say it is, a self-selected sample of scholars working in and/or interested in the Presidents of the United States.

 

No. Each of the twenty categories was treated equally in the compilation of the overall rankings. The final rankings in which F.D.R. finished on top was computed by summing the mean score that FDR received for each of the twenty categories. 

 

It is important not to confuse this poll, a descriptive analysis of the opinion of self-selected experts with a public opinion poll using a probability sample in which all members of a universe have a known and equal chance of inclusion. The former yields interesting and credible results worthy of discussion, the latter, can be used for generating inferential statistics and be assigned a meaningful margin of error.   We make no claim in this study to having generated a scientific sample or to producing inferential statistics. Rather, we have asked experts their opinion and we describe the results.

 

The survey is highly reliable. Within this type of sample – we have in five surveys over 30 years invited the same type of respondent to take the survey – the top five have remained the same over the 30 years. If indeed this sample tends to rank one president high or low or one type of president above another type, then that is an artifact of the sample and worthy of discussion. In other words, everyone is entitled to their opinion; we have measured and now report on the opinions of these scholars.

 

We always have. We conduct the survey one year after a new president has taken office. We seek to measure and track the ranking of presidents over time and after one year we measure the entry ranking of the new president. We agree that it may take 50 years for a president to find their place in history but we chose to start each president in the rankings after one year in office. We did so with Reagan, G.H. Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush so we did the same with Obama.

 

No, of course not. Still, we conduct the study to track the presidential rankings among scholars over time and offer the results to all those that are interested. We delight in the discussion not only of our work but more importantly of the presidency and our nation. We are happy to make a contribution to the ongoing public conversation about the presidency.