There's no doubt that Reagan is held in high esteem by a majority of Americans. A 2001 poll crowned him the greatest president of all time, just ahead of Abraham Lincoln. However, some of the other rankings in the top ten -- Bill Clinton (3), for example, outpolled George Washington (7) -- seem unlikely to hold over the long term. So we must turn to other means for judging Reagan's chances at historical immortality.
A better approach than polling is to compare Reagan with past presidents who are now regarded as great. But who makes this list? Few Americans would object to placing Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt near the top. To those four, most historians would add Harry S. Truman, Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Jackson. The question, then, is how Reagan ranks with these men.
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