LYNDON B. JOHNSON (D) - 1963-1969
The 36th President was one of the best arm-twisters to ever hold the office, ready to make deals with anyone and everyone to get his goals accomplished, and in the wake of JFK's assassination, he was able to get almost anything he wanted. To a point.
Johnson scored several domestic victories - the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights act, Medicaid, Medicare - all toward his goal of a Great Society, winning what he called the War on Poverty. But his political capital soon ran out thanks to his foreign policy, namely the Vietnam War.
LBJ was never really quite forthright with what he was doing with Vietnam. JFK had merely stuck the US toe in the water. By 1968, LBJ had 550,000 US troops there, dying at a rate of over 1000 a month. It led to college students chanting, "Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?" He believed he had to stop Communism there, lest it spread elsewhere. His popularity dropped so dramatically he decided against running for re-election in 1968.
I think a handful of Johnson's significant domestic accomplishments trump a lot of his failures, which keeps him in my top half.
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