As all are aware, former President Jimmy Carter, 100, died this past weekend. I’m acutely aware that a number of those reading this note can’t remember when Mr. Carter was president. As is appropriate when marking the passing of such a fine man, commentators – I noted that for the brief time we tuned in, even on Fox News – have emphasized Mr. Carter’s fundamental decency. The grotesque dichotomy between Mr. Carter’s character and that of the next occupant of the Oval Office need not be remarked upon here; it speaks for itself. (I do admit that I relish the notion that older Evangelical leaders’ contemplations of Mr. Carter may be causing them to rue, however briefly, how far their movement has strayed over the last 50 years for what it considers expediency.)
As someone who does remember Mr. Carter’s presidency, a number of lessons have occurred to me:
First, he ran a revolutionary campaign in 1976. As hard as it might be for younger Americans to now appreciate, the Deep South was nowhere, politically, in 1976. To be successful, any presidential candidate’s timing has to be right, and has been repeatedly remarked, Mr. Carter’s sincere morality provided the perfect contrast to the sordid revelations of then-former President Richard Nixon’s Watergate; but it was more than that. Mr. Carter and his advisors [Chief Campaign Strategist (and later White House Chief of Staff) Hamilton Jordan and his closest confidante (aside from Mrs. Carter) (and later White House Press Secretary) Jody Powell (both of whom were about 20 years younger than Mr. Carter, and both of whom passed away in the 2000s)] devised a strategy in which he would make an early first impression – and hopefully win – the Iowa Caucuses and then contrast himself from his multiple liberal adversaries for the Democratic nomination by taking positions that were more conservative (except on civil rights, where Mr. Carter’s record was impeccable; African American support was his base) than those held by the rest of the field. Nobody outside of Iowa had ever heard of the Iowa Caucuses before 1976. The Carter Campaign realized that Mr. Carter’s background – an Evangelical, a farmer, a military background – was perfectly tailored for Iowa, and that the national media loved the new, the different. They made Iowa matter, he won, and rode the momentum to a victory in the New Hampshire primary. He was on his way – and won a bunch of subsequent primaries by taking about 30% of the vote while the liberal field split the remaining 70%. (President-Elect Donald Trump employed a version of the strategy — undoubtedly without recognizing the parallel to Mr. Carter’s – to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination).
Mr. Carter’s narrow victory over then-President Gerald Ford is further evidence of a point I have made here several times in connection with my father, a rock-ribbed Republican who nonetheless passionately supported John F. Kennedy, an Irish Catholic, in 1960: Mr. Carter needed and swept the Electoral College votes of the Deep South, although I would venture that the majority of those states’ voters were closer to Mr. Ford on substantive issues than they were to Mr. Carter. It didn’t matter; Mr. Carter’s election psychologically empowered them in the same manner that Mr. Kennedy’s did for Catholics and former President Barack Obama’s did for African Americans a generation later. (When campaigning in the South, Mr. Carter would grin, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a president who doesn’t speak with an accent?” The South, which had been trending Republican before Mr. Carter’s 1976 run, returned resoundingly to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.) (The one group that has not been decisively motivated by common identity is women, demonstrating both why we should have a woman president, and why we don’t.)
I will venture that as president, Mr. Carter knew how to manage but didn’t know how to lead. (A criticism he himself acknowledged but didn’t agree with.) Legendary Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives “Tip” O’Neill once remarked – my words, but his meaning – that Mr. Carter knew more about policy and less about Congressional dynamics than any president he ever worked with. Last fall, we took a trip to the United Kingdom, and while there I was particularly struck by the simultaneous lunacy and brilliance of the British system. The vast majority of the UK citizens we talked to had respect for and loyalty to King Charles (although clearly not the reverence they held for his late Mum 😉 ) while mostly disparaging their elected representatives (the current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, had just assumed his post; I couldn’t remember his name, and most of them couldn’t, either). The allegiance the Brits have for Charles — whose crown in the official photo seems (aptly, to me) slightly askew – who sits in opulence, separated only by an accident of birth from the guy on a pub stool down the street from the Palace — seemed absurd to my American eyes; at the same time, no matter how contentiously Brits may disagree on the policies of the ruling government, they all have the King to rally around. Although Prime Ministers have rallied the UK – Winston Churchill being the most renowned example – for the most part, it is the Monarch who is the communal foundation. I envy the touchstone of unity that the monarchy provides UK citizens. We Americans expect our Presidents to be both King – to lead majestically – and Prime Minister – to get the minutia right. Very, very few men (not only have all of our presidents been men; I fear that all will be men for the remainder of my lifetime) are good at both. Required to choose, we Americans seem to prefer presidents who lead with broad flourishes: in the last century, Messrs. Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, Obama, Trump. We seemingly have less patience for presidents, no matter how arguably successful on paper, who govern in a more ministerial fashion: Messrs. Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Biden. Mr. Carter made a fine Prime Minister but a poor King. He checked a number of substantive boxes, but failed to hold the American imagination. His challenge as president was perhaps best captured in the Iranian hostage crisis: he did, in the end, through patience and persistence, bring the hostages home – an achievement for which their families and all rejoiced on a human level – but at a cost of leaving Americans feeling impotent, humiliated by Iran, then a third-rate nation with nothing but oil going for it. What Mr. Carter achieved – saving the hostages while avoiding a Mideast war – was commendable. It is not nearly so clear that his approach was the wisest strategically.
Mr. Carter taught me a lesson about myself – one that I suspect he would not appreciate — that indeed was part of the genesis of the title of this site. Never over the last 50 years have I been as passionately for a candidate as I was for Mr. Carter in 1976. (I have since been at least as passionately against a candidate, but you know that 😉 .) In 1976, I had nothing against Mr. Ford; I had simply become a true believer in Mr. Carter. I was absolutely confident that Mr. Carter would really make a difference, truly lead us in a new direction. For me, his presidency was a terrible disappointment. [I guess that at bottom, I am among those Americans that prefer majesty (while hoping the president has an able staff in the background 🙂 ) to ministry.] In 1980, my vote for Ronald Reagan was not a vote for Mr. Reagan but a vote against Mr. Carter. If you now dismiss my initial expectations as youthful exuberance, I will not disagree; but the fact remains that between 1977 and 1981 I realized, and have always thereafter recognized, that if I could be that wrong about a candidate, any notion I had about any candidate or issue, no matter how firmly held, could simply be … only so much noise.
That said, I leave the most important lesson for last: Mr. Carter’s example after leaving the White House. I would venture that there can hardly be a more bitter blow to one’s psyche than to win the U.S. presidency – to ascend to the highest secular height that the modern world offers – to work as hard at the job as Mr. Carter did, and then … to be so humiliatingly cast aside (Mr. Reagan won 44 states). In Mr. Carter’s post presidency – I think that even the notion of a “post presidency,” and the term, “Post-President” were generated because of Mr. Carter – he taught us that even following the most emotionally devastating defeat, there is much good one can do if one has the gumption to get up and do it. So even at this time when some of us are terribly disillusioned, his example provides encouragement that there is much good to be done – not only in the realm of policy and politics, but also to better the everyday situations of those less fortunate around us.
We just need to see what can be done, and get up and do it.
Gratias tibi, Mr. President. Requiescat in pace.
McCoy's Noise 