We all love former president Barack Obama (kitesurfing antics included), but it turns out that historians are in agreement.
According to a C-SPAN survey of 91 presidential historians, Barack Obama is ranked as the 12th most popular president in history. The historians rated all U.S. presidents on 10 different attributes on a scale from 1-10. They ranked him highly for managing the economy, public persuasion and "moral authority," and he was even ranked third of all 45 presidents for pursuing equality. His lower marks were on qualities such as handling international relations and managing relations with congress.
Obama is the first president since Ronald Regan to receive such a high ranking immediately after leaving office, according to TIME. As Refinery29 points out, considering his approval ratings were at 63 percent when he took office, and 57 percent upon leaving office, this isn't much of a surprise. (And in fact, it's surprising that he still wasn't ranked higher.) However, it's also relatively soon to be able to tell what kind of legacy Obama will leave behind in the history textbooks.
According to the survey, which has been done previously in 2000 and 2009, the most popular three presidents of all time are Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
If this isn't further evidence that Americans want Obama back, we're not sure what is.