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Which president has fascinated you the most? It doesn't have to have anything to do with their politics you don't even have to personally like them.
My most interesting president would be John F. Kennedy: Probably the most charismatic president ever, had a cool elegance about him and I always found his dynamic in his family very interesting. How his older brother Joe was originally the one their father wanted to go into politics and one day become president. But after his death JFK took on the fathers hopes and became president.
Others who I've been interested in are: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Nixon and Lincoln.
Purely subjective, but.. George Washington.
He led a successful revolution against arguably the most powerful empire in human history. Was a general, a pioneering president, a national idol.. and ultimately the man simply wanted to work his farm.
Washington seemed to have a good balance of alpha leadership & grounded humility. My opinion, the American presidency has yet to produce an equal..
That's a tough one, but Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson would certainly be among the most interesting.
TR was a fireball of energy and had begun studying animal life as a child, even amassing a collection of species.
He was a cultured easterner/New Yorker who went out west, and after overcoming initial suspicion ("who is this genteel four eyes who thinks he came make it in the wild?") he won the people there over and he amazed them with his incredible work ethic and drive.
And that's just scratching the surface.
Although he was from a family of wealth and affluence, he hated pomposity and monopolies, and was seen as a hero of the average citizen.
He also won a Nobel Peace Prize for helping arrange an end to the Russian-Japanese War of 1905.
If Roosevelt had a dark side, it was that he often took slights to his honor/importance to the extreme and would hold a grudge with anyone who disagreed with him. This led to a falling out with his old friend, William H. Taft, that split the Republican party and helped Democrat Woodrow Wilson win election in 1912.
As for Jefferson, where to begin?
He was the author of the Declaration of Independence and an inventor/scholar, as well as a leader and statesman.
People may have disagreed with his politics, but they never doubted his intellect and abilities. He was a true colonial era renaissance man.
He was also flawed in that he championed freedom but he himself kept slaves, and fathered at least one child by via one of his slaves.
Which president has fascinated you the most? It doesn't have to have anything to do with their politics you don't even have to personally like them.
My most interesting president would be John F. Kennedy: Probably the most charismatic president ever, had a cool elegance about him and I always found his dynamic in his family very interesting. How his older brother Joe was originally the one their father wanted to go into politics and one day become president. But after his death JFK took on the fathers hopes and became president.
Others who I've been interested in are: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Nixon and Lincoln.
Which president do you find most interesting?
Given what you say above, I take it you are referring to the most interesting men who have been President - ie, not just their actions as President but their lives beyond.
The only order I'm giving here is chronological - if I had to pick just one, I'd probably go with Jefferson.
George Washington
This is largely due to Washington's life spanning all the important parts of the founding of the nation - his military command during the war, his presiding of the Constitutional Convention, and his essential invention of the way the Presidency would operate.
As an aside - Ron Chernow's Washington: A Life is an exceptionally good biography, expertly toeing that line between scholarly content and gripping narrative. I highly recommend it.
Thomas Jefferson
I put Jefferson here because he did so much. He was a true Renaissance man: politician, scientist, architect, inventor, linguist, and more. Interestingly, he also held unorthodox religious views that were acceptable to men of his era but would probably doom him in the modern political world. Also fascinating is the deep disconnect between what he believed - that slavery was a moral abomination, one which Jefferson tried to abolish in Virginia in the late 1770s - and his continued position as a slaveholder.
Franklin Roosevelt
FDR's place here is because his Presidency spanned such an eventful time, including two of the four great existential crises of American history (the Great Depression and World War II - the others being the struggle for independence and the post-war attempt to fashion a working state, and the Civil War).
Richard Nixon
I put Nixon here because I find him fascinating. He came from nothing to the Presidency almost by sheer will. He didn't have many political talents but he was politically brilliant, and his intelligence is what allowed him to succeed. And in contrast to his impressive intellect, he possessed a deeply self-destructive inclination that ultimately led to his political demise.
That's my big four. The second tier, again in chronological order, would be John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.
Fought in the Revolutionary War when he was 13
Famous General in the war of 1812
Famous Indian fighter. I am not sure how many men he killed in total between battles and duels or just him having a bad day.
Was an accomplished duelist - killing at least one man in a duel
Carried two bullets in his body from previous duels and battles.
Had a pet parrot, at his funeral the parrot cussed so much it had to be removed.
First president that experienced an assassination attempt. Jackson beat the crap out of the attacker with his cane.
Got in trouble while president for purchasing too many spittoons (20 in fact, all through the white house - I guess he liked to spit).
Adopted and raised 11 children.
Upon leaving office he noted two regrets: that he had been unable to shoot Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun.
He just did so much. He resigned as Undersecretary of the Navy, so he could spend his own money to raise the Rough Riders, a cavalry regiment composed partly of cowboys he had met out west and partly of rich New Yorkers he had grown up with. Then their horses got left behind in the U.S. So he had his men fight as infantry instead. The U.S. Army changed its rules because Paresident Wilson was afraid he would do this again after the U.S. Entered WWI, and it was felt that Roosevelt dying in the war would be too much of a burden for the country. But there's tons of other things. He started the national park system (and today Theodore Roosevelt National Park is the only one where wild horses aren't killed by the park service as they want to maintain the wildlife Roosevelt would have seen in his time in the West), he sent elk to New Zealand because he felt the Kiwis should have big game to hunt, he got shot and gave an hour long speech while bleeding with the bullet lodged in his body. Just an all around awesome life.
For me, hands down Lincoln. Amazing biography. Amazing Presidency. Full of complexity and intrigue.
As for a Presidency I respect, I would say Eisenhower's is one that achieved so much for the American people but is little recognized. Set the foundation for middle class growth for the next 30 years.
Richard Nixon
I put Nixon here because I find him fascinating. He came from nothing to the Presidency almost by sheer will. He didn't have many political talents but he was politically brilliant, and his intelligence is what allowed him to succeed. And in contrast to his impressive intellect, he possessed a deeply self-destructive inclination that ultimately led to his political demise.
Nixon was a brilliant man with great faults. His paranoia is what destroyed him- he honestly believed that everyone was out to get him. And he cussed up a storm- I was listening to some of his White House secret tapes (that man recorded EVERYTHING) and I have never heard someone drop the F bomb so much in my life.
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