Given that popularity, it’s pretty reasonable to ask whether Clinton will be remembered as one of the greatest presidents ever.
And while he’s not there yet, it’s trending strongly in that direction.
Opinion polls of the best commanders-in-chief tend to favor more recent presidents. A 2011 Gallup poll asked Americans who the best president ever was, and Ronald Reagan and Clinton filled two of the top three slots — ahead of consensus great presidents including George Washington, John F. Kennedy and both Roosevelts.
Presidential scholars, however, have generally ranked Clinton in the teens out of the 43 presidents (Wikipedia recaps all of these surveys here). A 2010 Siena poll pegged Clinton as the 13th-best president, while a 2009 CSPAN poll put him at No. 15. Scholars certainly have plenty of impact on history’s list of the greatest presidents, but these surveys don’t really measure the broader public’s opinion.
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