Let's compare Obama and Trump to Buchanan

We have a lot of Trump fanatics in this forum. I expected one of them to object.
He could get a few more points for laws and economy but that won't catch him up.
Unfortunately Greenleft gives no thought to scandal. While that helps Grant and Clinton a lot it pole vaults Trump about 20 points, well past Obama, because Obama loses a lot of points for lack of scandal.

 

I had nothing left to contribute but you got my attention so I will address that. It depends on said scandal. If it affects people on a personal level and hinders the uplifting of society. I do this same trope too often but it's the only one I know: If money was diverted from fixing a pothole in my neighborhood road and into the the pockets of a wealthy politician to improve his mansion, yes I would take that very seriously.

If on the other hand it's a lie to cover up an embarrassing and inconsequential detail of a politician's personal affairs, who am I to wag my finger?

Often we do not know the immediate details of a scandal and bias makes us want to believe they are not true or true. Which is why when it comes to scandals where the whole truth is not revealed, I would not jump to conclusions.

In the case of the whole Ukraine and Hunter Biden affair, I would say it does not merit my personal outrage but it does reveal Trump to be petty and a hypocrite. This might pull down my approval of the man slightly, but not toward his Presidency as a whole. It does however highlight a symptom of the problems of the system and institutions so any future President who addresses correction to it gains points in my view.

 

I've been too busy to reply to anything for several days, and I was pondering the next logical step when I first saw the latest reply. It's an awkward one.
The Hunter Biden scandal will be a shadow hanging over the new administration even if nothing new happens that merits the term. It reflects only on the voters who voted for him out of lifelong love despite the allegations being known during the primaries.
I don't think you can take points from Trump for trying to accuse his rival of a crime, and with the present status of him losing 20 points because everyone hates him for sins-as opposed to turning against him because of suspected tax fraud-there is nowhere to go.
However since you are willing to forgive Clinton's scandals (some of which did hurt the country tangibly) the next logical step would be to eliminate the scandals category from my 7 categories, maybe intangibles too, and see who rises or falls with the 5 remaining categories.
You can do it yourself by adjusting any of the Presidents I cited.

 

So if you eliminate scandals and intangibles, giving 20 points for each of the 5 remaining categories Trump gets 20 for the Supreme Court, 15 for cabinet, 7 for laws, 15 for economy and 12 for wars for a total of 69.

 

Obama gets 13 for the Supreme Court, 10 for Cabinet, 10 for laws, 15 for economy and 12 for wars for a total of 57.

 

Buchanan gets 10 for the Supreme Court, 15 for cabinet, 10 for laws, 16 for economy and 0 for wars for a total of 51.

 

Grant gets 20 for the Supreme Court, 12 for cabinet, 10 for laws, 10 for economy and 12 for wars for a total of 64.

 

Hoover gets 10 for the Supreme Court, 20 for cabinet, 0 for laws, 0 for economy and 20 for wars for a total of 50.

 

Harding gets 20 for the Supreme Court, 10 for cabinet, 10 for laws, 20 for economy and 20 for wars for a total of 80.

 

Clinton gets 20 for the Supreme Court, 10 for cabinet, 10 for laws, 20 for economy and 15 for wars for a total of 75.

 

W. gets 20 for the Supreme Court, 20 for cabinet, 16 for laws, 12 for economy and 15 for wars for a total of 83.

 

Next I have to look at the top of the list again.
Monroe got 95 points originally, losing 3 for economy and 2 for wars. That was out of 14.
With those categories increased to 20 he loses 2 for economy and 1 for wars for a total of 8 points and a score of 92.

 

put Teddy Roosevelt at 94 originally, losing all his points for wars, but less than half so he ends up at 91.

 

I put Lincoln at 88. He lost for intangibles, a weak cabinet and problems with the war. He gains by ignoring the intangibles, so now he gains points. I think he holds at about 88, losing 6 each for war and cabinet.

 

Jefferson ended up at 85. His weak points were for wars (problems dealing with the wars in Europe) and the Supreme Court (because his appointees were weak and his attempt to remove Samuel Chase failed). I was being harsher on him in that regard than I was for others later on. With only 5 categories and gentler standards he moves up to 88.

 

McKinley ended up at 83.
I must have taken away points because he had only one Supreme Court Justice and the war he quickly won was unnecessary.
I could give him the full 20 for all 5 categories now and a perfect 100.
If you deduct 10 points for starting a war that was not necessary we have to do the same for Madison, Polk, Truman, Kennedy and, of course, W.
For now he ends up at 90.

 

I put Rutherford Hayes at 82 points.
The economy was stabilized after the panic of 1873. He ended Reconstruction and probably I took points from him because the white supremacists took charge again down south. He loses one third of possible points because his attempt to fill a third Supreme Court vacancy at the end of his term failed. I must have taken points for intangibles.
So at most you can deduct 7 for Supreme Court and 10 for wars and he rises to 83.

 

I ended up with Eisenhower at 81.
To get him that low requires him to lose points for his Supreme Court picks. He got all 5 through but one was horrible and 2 went against his intended voting patterns.
He loses a few points for wars, not because of Korea but things like causing revolutions unnecessarily and the U2 incident.
The laws all went through but not quite the way Republicans hoped.
So with these 5 considerations he ends up with 85 points.

 

Reagan ended up at 80. Starting from scratch with these 5 categories he gets 20 for the Supreme Court, 15 for cabinet, 20 for economy, 15 for laws and 16 for wars for 86 points.

 

Madison also ended up at 80. Now he starts by losing 10 points for starting the War of 1812 and 5 more for fighting to a draw.
We give him 20 for the Supreme Court, though, like Jefferson, they failed to win against Chief Justice John Marshall.
He gets 20 for the cabinet. There's no reason to subtract for laws. He gets 20 for economy and ends up at 85.

 

put Truman at 79, but at the time I was splitting hairs to avoid a tie.
He gets 10 for wars, 20 for the Supreme Court, 10 for economy, 20 for cabinet and 15 for laws for a total of 75.

 

So if I'm taking 10 points away from McKinley and Madison for wars just because the wars were not necessary, does that change the position of W., currently with 83 points?
It can't really change his position. We already took 5 points for mismanagement of the aftermath of the wars. Everyone agrees that one of the wars was necessary. Half of us think both were necessary. He stays at 83.

 

Coolidge is always a tough one. He gets 20 for no wars, 20 for Supreme Court, 20 for economy, 20 for cabinet (after he cleaned out the Harding guys). We can take off some points because no laws were passed, but his only weakness was not responding to the Mississippi flooding and not slowing the economy to avoid the Great Depression.
That means he gets to the top rather cheaply. If he ends up at 90 something is definitely wrong with this system.
There is something wrong with this system. That's why my system is more complex.

 

So the question comes up. How many points can you take from Coolidge for not knowing a depression was coming? Closer to the present, who else can lose points for that? Can we take points from Reagan, since his policies were the same and the results might have been similar? They have to sink as a team, except Reagan could sink more because he had the example of the 20s to look back at. The panics of 1837, 1873 and 1893 were not like this, so Coolidge had no reason to think a disaster was ahead. You certainly don't want to take points from poor Benjamin Harrison for that.
Andrew Jackson though is a different matter.

 

Andrew Jackson get 20 for the Supreme Court, 14 for cabinet, 20 for wars.
In the category of laws we have 2 problems. He broke the record for vetoes, but you can't do that unless Congress is hyper and it was. So lots of laws were passed and lots of proposed laws were blocked. The 2 that matter most both went his way: the Trail of Tears and destroying the National Bank.
You get points for bad laws as well as good laws, but since the restructuring of the National Bank led to disaster you have to take 10 points from him for economics. Take 5 points for all the vetoes and he ends up at 80.