C-SPAN survey lists top presidents: Lincoln, Washington, FDR

WASHINGTON – Just in time for Presidents Day, a new survey of historians on presidential leadership gives the top five slots to Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.

It’s C-SPAN’s third survey on presidents, and the first in which Eisenhower cracks the top five. In 2009, Eisenhower ranked eighth and in 2000 he ranked ninth.

Barack Obama ranks 12th on his first time in the survey of 91 presidential historians.

A member of the survey advisory team, Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley, says it’s fitting that Lincoln, Washington and Franklin Roosevelt are the top three. And he says it’s “quite impressive” for Obama to come in at 12 in his first survey. Brinkley also notes that George W. Bush moves up from 36 to 33.