DALLAS — He’s a Texas lawyer. He’s an author. And he’s a historian.
After writing about baseball for years, Talmage Boston turned his attention to presidential history.
And in his latest book, Boston tells readers about the best traits that make the best presidents.
Well aware of the hyper-partisanship that’s infected modern politics, Boston had a goal when he released “How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons From Our Top Presidents.”
“I want Democrats to recognize we've had some great Republican presidents, and I want Republicans to recognize we've had some great Democratic presidents,” Boston told us on Y’all-itics.
Listen to the full Y'all-itics episode here:
In his book, Boston identifies the 24 traits that can be found in the men he identified as the top eight U.S. presidents in history, an average of three traits per president.
He says George Washington, for instance, learned from his mistakes.
Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, was a terrible public speaker who gave a grand total of two speeches during his presidency, his two inaugural addresses. But Boston says Jefferson was a gifted persuader who got things done behind the scenes. And his actions led to one of the important political adages we still use today: politics is all about relationships.
Boston tells us that in order to make sure his research was held to the highest standards, he turned to some of the country’s leading historians to check his work, including three Pulitzer Prize-winning historians.
There are two notable presidents missing from this list and Boston says neither man will ever make a “best of” list: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the two candidates locked in a rematch. Only one of them will enjoy a second term.
“We just hope the country survives these four years and then hopefully we’ll have a new batch of younger leaders who will have these, at least some of these, 24 leadership traits,” said Boston. “With each passing day, one of them becomes more cognitively dysfunctional. The other becomes more psychologically unhinged. I think they are equally dangerous and the prospect of either of them having a second term is not something that I look to favorably.”
Who are the other top Presidents? And what are the other top traits? Listen to the full episode of Y’all-itics to find out if you are Presidential material. Cheers!