By the Maui Curmudgeon (13th 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.

MILLARD FILLMORE: 1850-1853 ~ 13th U.S. President

The Whig Party reeled - here was the second mealy, quiet, “unharmful” person safely installed in the Vice-presidency (to appeal the northerners as Filmore was from New York) who suddenly became president. His own party hated him so that they never nominated him to run on his own in 1852.

Handsome, athletic and stolid, Filmore worked his way through the New York Legislature and Congress. He revised the banking system in New York, “brilliantly so” as some historians say. He focused on good economic policies which would help what today we call the “middle class”, but his programs were usually defeated in Congress, not only by the opposition (Democrats), but Whigs as well, who despised Filmore’s compromising, “get along” personality.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (12th 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.

ZACHARY TAYLOR: 1949-1850 ~ 12th U.S. President

The seventh man in a row to be elected to the Presidency from Virginia. Zachary Taylor was offered a commission in the U.S. Army in 1808 from his cousin, James Madison.  He served in the War of 1812 and was promoted to captain. He then fought against the Spanish in Florida, and got the nickname, “Old Rough and Ready.”

By 1845, the 60-year-old general was cutting a swath through Mexican territories in the Mexican War. At Buena Vista, legend says that Taylor and his men were outnumbered 3 to 1, yet trounced General Santa Anna, thus capturing the nation’s imagination and becoming a national hero.

He was elected to the White House intending not to run under a political party, for he thought he would become a “slave of the party” rather than a leader. Still, in the end he accepted the Whig endorsement, and won. He gave the shortest speech in Inauguration history - some say it ran less than three minutes - on March 4, 1949.

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