Maggie's Farm

Hillary Clinton 135

Offhand, I would say that is too low, as Hillary was a Merit Finalist. I would estimate by that criteria, at least 140 and probably higher. When Hillary and I took the Merits, the score you got on the Merits was roughly equivalent to IQ, and I recall a Merit cutoff of around 145, though Illinois may have had a lower cutoff.

Hillary may be the sort that tests better than she performs. Nixon is acknowledged to be pretty bright- though with iron butt at Duke Law. His books were well-written- at least the ones I read. Hillary's books- much worse. Reading Nixon's books, you end up with respect for him. Hillary- laugh at her lack of self-knowledge.

John Kerry, Dubya and Al Gore- that sounds about what I have read. Back in 2004 the scuttlebutt was that Dubya was SO much dumber than the NUANCED Kerry, but it turns out that the tests they took for the military put paid to that.

Bill Clinton 120 (high verbal, low math). I don't know about Bill's math smarts. I have read that in law school he could slack off all semester and get by with a week's cramming. That to me indicates an IQ considerably higher than 120. Cramming is useless for STEM- most of us need to go full-out from beginning to end. Cramming is easier for word subjects. Bill couldn't have done that if he were STEMming. I am impressed that he was able to get away with it.

Trump and Obama- I have no reason to disagree. He got into Penn via connections, but was bright enough to do the work.

Others have pointed out that millionaires and managers are not necessarily geniuses- and Presidents are basically managers. A not top tier IQ, but with a very high social IQ. Recall FDR being described as not a top rate mind but with a top rate temperament. So he could mine the minds of the policy geeks. A childhood friend was like that. She was friends- and still is- with the brightest kid in our class. Most of her intellect would have been intimidated by his smarts. She went on to a high level management position with a Fortune 500, now retired.

I consider Trump to be perhaps the "smartest" president in the last 100 years or so. I do not consider Hillary to be particularly smart which she has confirmed many times over.

Of the Presidents we have had in the last 100 years or so, Trump and Reagan are the only ones who have had significant non-military experience outside politics- Truman excepted. This gave them perspectives different from the ordinary politician. That "trumps" relative intelligence differences.

The issue with Hillary is NOT her intelligence. She was a Merit Finalist, so she is pretty damned bright. The problem with Hillary is that there is no there there. She absorbs the ambience of the environment she is in, only to change when in a new environment. In her Chicago suburb in 1964, she was the perfect Chicago suburbanite- a Republican and thus a Goldwater Girl. At Wellesley several years later, she was in a lefty environment, and she became an Alinskyite. Similarly, she changes her accent when making a campaign stop at a black church.

The problem for Hillary is that there isn't always a copy book to follow. Consider her recent kvetching about "hostile" journalists Lauer etc. not accepting her canned answer about the e-mails. A far as Hillary was concerned, she followed the copy book response for the e-mails. That was all she needed to do.

Some wordsmiths concluded that Hillary's speaking during the debates was at a higher grade level than Trump's. That may indicate a higher intellectual level for Hillary.[Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level ].
There may be something else involved:relatively spontaneous versus memorized speeches. In Toastmasters, I learned that there were basically two ways to make a speech. You could memorize it from beginning to end. Or, you could use a template: tell what you are going to talk about, memorize the main 3-4 points and talk about them, and then sum up what you have talked about. Using the template is a lot easier. Using the template will also result in a simpler vocabulary. You are less likely to use flowery phrases or complex phrases using the template model. I suspect that Hillary memorized big chunks, which helps explain why her vocabulary was larger and she spoke at a higher grade level than Trump. Nonetheless, even if Hillary were spontaneous, her vocabulary etc. would be higher. But I suspect that her memorizing instead of using the main points template increased the difference.