Mediocre Presidents

Today we visit the homes of Rutherford B. Hayes and Warren G. Harding. Let's get this out of the way first. The B and the G? Birchard and Gamaliel. Why do so many Presidents have weird middle names. And if it is that weird, why advertise it by even listing the initial? "Hey Warren, what does the G stand for? Gamaliel? No seriously, what does it stand for?" With Hayes I don't think it really matters. He would have had enough trouble dealing with the first name Rutherford.

The first few Presidents - George, John, Tom, James, James. If these two had more normal names maybe they would have been better presidents. Most famous Presidential middle name ever? Milhouse. The creator of the Simpsons used Nixon's middle name for Bart's best friend because it was so weird sounding.

Speaking of The Simpsons, I can't go to Presidential sites like these without thinking of their school musical honoring the mediocre presidents -

We are the mediocre Presidents,

You won't find our picture on dollars or on cents,

And so on. It's a delightful song. I think most of those considered mediocre were just living in uninteresting times. Most of those considered great were Presidents during a war that we ended up winning. If you are a President and your claim to fame is the Hoot-Smalley Act (a real thing) you're not getting a big write-up in the history books. 

Quite a few of these Ohio Presidents ran what was called front porch campaigns. Instead of running around the country, they would just go onto their front porch and give a speech each day. It was the 19th century version of tweeting. 

 You can see Warren's porch back in the day compared to a picture I took recently. Its cool to be right there had a historic site like that. No? OK, to each his own, but I thought it was cool. The house and even the neighborhood looks just like the old-time pictures. It was just less than a hundred years ago, so I guess it isn't all that ancient, but still pretty long ago.

Warren G. Harding looked very Presidential and apparently a great speaker. Not a great President, though. Two out of three.