General Discussion

years before a lot of us were born. I happened to have been born in the time period where we have only had 3 Democratic Presidents in my lifetime, Carter, Clinton, and now Obama. It has all been Republicans other than only those three. I was kind of young when Carter was president, so I have a hard time there.

That leaves me with Clinton and Obama. Despite some of Clinton's policies that I thought leaned too far right later on in his presidency (I despised Workfare, NAFTA, and some of his other later policies), I did overall like him as president at that time. The times were different back then though. Instead of WHEN are gay people going to get some basic rights, it was ARE gay people ever going to even have a seat at the table to try to get rights.

I do also feel that Obama has furthered some of the things that Clinton started. Believe it or not, one of the things people beat Clinton over the head with is DADT. Before that, there was no move by any major politician to change the policy the military had before that, which was if they found out you were gay, you were screwed with no recourse legally. They could just give you a dishonorable discharge if they merely found out you were gay. It was much worse before DADT. As bad as DADT was, it did open the door to make change later, which is why I thought Clinton did that; to open the door to something better later. Also, other issues Clinton was good on, Obama was able to advance further too. So, I have appreciated those. I can't choose between them though as which one is "best" in my lifetime, because they really are very similar in their policies and how they have/had govern(ed). Both seem to have worked together to make some good changes and both have some policies I don't like too much.

I guess you just have to remember what it was like before to know how to compare now. Some people on DU were alive while Kennedy was president. You can bet if they were, most likely they loved him and he will be their favorite.

So, the answer could possibly depend on the age of the person responding to your poll and personal experiences they may have noticed in regards to a particular president through the years.