Presidents You Could Hang Out With

[Weatherman2020]

Which Presidents do you think you would call over for a backyard BBQ on the weekend? Someone you could just sit down with a cool one and shoot the breeze with and enjoy their company.

Those not on my list are just not personality fits.

My list:
Thomas Jefferson. The man was a genius. Inventor, creator, and of course author. He would read two books side by side he was so interested in the world. Theology would be a great discussion.

John Adams. Not afraid to tell people to get lost when he felt like doing what was right. And unlike Franklin who used wine and dine diplomacy, Adams was an action figure diplomat. Get it done now and fast with straight talk.

Abe Lincoln. Interesting discussions on leadership. Half his Generals were crap and had to work around them as well as his fantastic leadership skills. And of course theology with his faith very deep in his last years.

Teddy Roosevelt. Bad asses of bad asses. Gets shot and finishes his speech. Lover of the great outdoors.

Jimmy Carter. Second worst President ever but a great person willing to help others. As long as he didn't try to micro manage my gardener on how to operate a lawn mower while over.

Ronald Reagan. Probably my favorite. Give him a horse and some land and he is happy.

George W Bush. Not a Republican politically at all but very funny guy. While President there was a staff member assigned to try to suppress his joking to be more Presidential. Lots of laughs around the campfire with this guy.

That's it for me.

 

[JGalt]

Andrew Jackson or Teddy Roosevelt. Either one of their backyard BBQ's would have lots of guns and shooting at things.

What the hell is a good get-together without guns and shooting at things? Why just today, I got to shoot a friend's M-14 and 4" barreled Ruger .44 mag out back.

 

[norwegen]

Donald Trump. I think I can finagle him into including me in his will over a Shirley Temple.

 

[Mac1958]

Keeping it modern day, definitely Clinton and Dubya.

Outside of that, I hear Franklin was a lush, so he'd be on the list.

 

[tycho1572]

Trump.
The guy is smart and has a great sense of humor.

 

[Darkwind]

Calvin Coolidge.

The man knew when to shut the hell up.

 

[aaronleland]

Of our most recent presidents the only one I probably wouldn't want to hang out with is Bush Sr. He just seems like a stiff, old school type. Obama was kind of a turd, but I'm sure he's a nice enough guy. Trump, G.W., and Clinton would be a fucking blast to hangout with.

I could do some blow and get drunk with G.W.

Clinton, Trump and I would be finger fucking bitches together.

Obama and I would be finger fucking dudes together.

Reagan, Carter and I would be reminiscing about the "good old days" of whites only water fountains.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Which Presidents do you think you would call over for a backyard BBQ on the weekend? Someone you could just sit down with a cool one and shoot the breeze with and enjoy their company.

Without regard to whether I agree with any of their political, social or governance ideas and only in consideration of whether I'd find their conversation thoughtful enough to hold my interest:

• John Adams
  
• JFK
• Washington
• Jefferson
• Bill Clinton
• James Madison
• John Tyler
• Lincoln
• FDR
• Garfield
• Teddy Roosevelt
• Woodrow Wilson

As for being merely pleasant company for a few hours, any of them would be excellent at that. They all did, after all, at one point or another win high elected/appointed office, and there's quite simply no way that happens if one can't be personable on a "backyard barbeque" level whereat no "heavy" conversation is foreseen to ensue. Truly, just about any politician -- neighborhood, town/city, county, state, or national -- is very good at that sort of thing. They have to be because, with regard to their interactions with members of the general public, elected office holders mostly only have a couple minutes in which to make a favorable impression on any given individual.

Being a part of "social Washington," I somewhat routinely get opportunities to have brief chats with members of Congress or with relatively highly placed appointed federal officials, though not nearly as often for more than five to ten minutes at a stretch, which has happened only when I've made an appointment to meet with them, attended or hosted a fundraiser, or sat next to them on an airplane.


Aside and off-topic:

It's been my experience that when one finds oneself having a one-on-one with members of Congress, they are quite candid and in ways they nearly never are when answering exactly the same questions and/or discussing the exact same topics a reporter might pose to/with them in a televised situation. Ask them why they are so candid in person and they'll squarely answer with any or all of the following:

• They aren't comfortable looking a voter in the eye and lying to them
• The general public doesn't want comprehensive answers.
• The general public mostly doesn't or won't like the truth and you can't get elected telling people things they don't like hearing.
• Below is what a U.S. Senator said to me as we chatted on a flight from D.C. to London. I put the remarks in quotes because the material parts of the passage are accurately quoted and because they're not, as are the above bulleted statements, a summarization of what I've heard from other elected office holders.
  
  "Even with talking to people like you on planes, I can count on two hands the number who know shit from shinola on much of anything...economics, the environment, or what have you. You don't have the time to go to that level of detail when you answer a reporter's question in the hallway on the way from one meeting to the next, and when you have a little more time, you still can't sit there on television and become someone's high school science and economics and history teacher, but to get the point across to most people, you'd have to be not just one of those all three at once in the space of five minutes."
  
  "Nobody can do that. So you have to choose who[m] you're gonna piss off with the highly summarized response you give, if you even give one. Then there's also the fact that on plenty of things, unless you've been in office for a couple terms, unless a question has something to do with what you did before coming to the Capitol, you don't really know enough about the topic to give an answer that is truthful and won't put you in political hot water."

What does all that suggest vis a vis this thread's topic? That it's not at all difficult to have an interesting conversation with a POTUS or any elected office holder. (I don't care about or care to read what one may think any of it suggests outside of this thread's topical scope, for none of that is why I shared the information I did.)
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