Hillary Clinton, Obama top most admired list -- again

PRINCETON, N.J., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Hillary Clinton topped Gallup's most admired women list for the 13th straight year, while President Barack Obama remained the most-admired man.

Clinton, former first lady, senator and secretary of state, has, in fact, been on top of the list for 17 of the past 18 years, losing out to Laura Bush in 2001 immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Clinton has topped the list a total of 19 times, seven times more than Eleanor Roosevelt.

Obama has been the most admired man throughout his presidency. This year, he was the choice of 19 percent of respondents.

While Clinton was chosen by 12 percent of those polled by the Gallup Organization, 8 percent selected Oprah Winfrey, who in recent years has had a lock on the No. 2 spot. Clinton's lead was the smallest since 2007, when she was only 2 percentage points ahead of Winfrey.

Malala Yousafzai, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, was in third place with 5 percent, followed by former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice with 4 percent and Michelle Obama at 3 percent. Angelina Jolie, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and the Duchess of Cambridge, referred to by Gallup as Princess Kate, were tied at 2 percent. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Laura Bush rounded out the top 10 with 1 percent each.

Obama was followed by Pope Francis at 6 percent, President Bill Clinton, 3 percent, and the Rev. Billy Graham and President George W. Bush with 2 percent each. Six men were tied at the bottom of the list with 1 percent each: Dr. Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and potential Republican presidential contender, physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, conservative TV personality Bill O'Reilly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Gallup said Hillary Clinton's numbers tend to go down when she is seen as a partisan figure -- at the moment as the likely Democratic presidential nominee in 2016. A CNN/ORC poll released Monday reported she was the choice of two-thirds of Democrats, far ahead of Warren, in second place with only 9 percent.

Carson was the only person in the crowded field of possible Republican presidential contenders to make it to the Top 10 most admired list. The CNN poll found that Jeb Bush, George W.'s brother, is emerging as a frontrunner, the choice of 23 percent of Republicans.

Queen Elizabeth II, who did not make it to the Top 10 this year, has been there a record 46 times since Gallup began compiling the list in 1946, followed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Winfrey and Clinton. On the men's side, Graham holds the record with 58 appearances in the Top 10, followed by President Ronald Reagan, President Jimmy Carter, Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton.

Gallup polled 805 U.S. adults by telephone between Dec. 8 and Dec. 11 for this year's list.