I don't know...I tend to agree somewhat with you. Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Eisenhower, and Reagan were certainly what would be called "conservative" today. I believe that most of the early generations would be considered "conservatives" today - they mostly debated who was more disgusted with big government and which parties back then were more closely aligned with monarchy and despotism - which was very few, if any. They pretty much all hated federal expansion. There's no doubt that FDR was quite nearly a socialist, so he's certainly not a conservative or a Republican by today's standards. Teddy was a progressive, but not in the sense of today's "progressives" - which actually advocate policies that would be regressive. He would most likely belong to the Republican Party today. Truman was pretty much a centrist Democrat. JFK was a strong Catholic, a tax-cutter, and hard-nosed national defense kind of guy. He got us into a war - Vietnam - and started up our modern-day space program. Overall, he sounds pretty Republican to me. Now, I don't know who these historians are that voted on this, but there are what I believe to be some flaws with the list. I think it's too early to even rank anyone past Reagan...maybe even Reagan himself. In any case, it's not so much the Party label that determines who was better or more likely to be considered better - it's the principles they followed as president. Most of the top presidents on that list believed in a strong and secure country, both physically and economically, while preserving individual liberties and keeping a limited government. That's what makes them good. Winning wars doesn't hurt either. Who is Publius? What is Rational Liberty? How do I join Xomba and get PAID to write?