By the Maui Curmudgeon (9th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON: 1841 ~ 9th U.S. President

Stop me if this sounds familiar:

A man who was Senator, who had a storied military career, but who was old by current standards, spends most of his campaign running around trying to convince everyone he isn’t too old to be President of the United States, that his health was good and modern medicine had come a long way.

Nope, not John McCain, the current Republican candidate, but William Henry Harrison. Mr. Harrison took the oath of office on March 4, 1841, caught a cold, which developed into pneumonia, and on April 4, just 31 days later, he died. He was 68 years old, four years younger than McCain is today.

Harrison barely filled most of his cabinet, and there is nothing in his administration on which to judge him.

One can hope that McCain picks a nice, young, healthy running mate.

Harrison’s term is so short and inconsequential that he holds no rank in any historical Presidential poll. You are best finding a biography of him in a used book store sometime. It will be a thin text. He was not photographed in office.

INTERESTING BITS

• He delivered the longest innaugural address.
• He served the shortest time in office.
• He was the first U.S. President to die in office.

Fear and negativity are the King and Queen of America at present. There are numerous reasons for this, both real and imagined.

There are so many fears, in fact, that it is pointless to deal with them individually. One must deal with fear itself. One must gain a perspective which raises one above fear. Otherwise one will use all of his energy and time dealing with fears one at a time.

Read the rest…

By the Maui Curmudgeon (8th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

MARTIN  VAN BUREN: 1837-1841 ~ 8th U.S. President

A man of prodigious accomplishments, Van Buren was the country’s first self-made man to become president. Born of poor tenant farmers, Van Buren used his tenuous links with propertied rich friends (the New York Van Nesses) to gain entrance into law school where he eventually repudiated them. He was off, and before he was finished he would become known as “the little magician.”

Contemporaries of his, those with well-known names and fat wallets, people like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, coveted the presidency, but only Van Buren won it. He had worked his way up from law school, to a lucrative practice in New York, then as a New York Senator and Governor. Under Jackson, he was Minister to Great Britian, and Jackson’s vice-president during the second term. Jackson adored Van Buren, and respected his amazing ability to work bureaucracies to accomplish tasks, which is why Jackson held onto him, and even endorsed him as his successor, when Van Buren often didn’t like Jackson’s practices. Read the rest…