SACRAMENTO – Jimmy Carter was the right presidential candidate for his time in 1976 – a smiling, smug, anti-Washington outsider who promised truth and decency.
He was a born populist, but he appealed to the voters' better angels, not their worst natures. He preached love, not hate.
That's how I remember the former governor and peanut farmer from tiny Plains, Georgia. I followed him up close, from his January campaign in living rooms and on street corners in the Iowa caucuses to the Democratic National Convention in July, where he won the party's presidential nomination.
But he may not have been the right president for the time.
America has been hit by astronomical inflation – up to 14% – that has made what the country has been through in the last two years seem like an economic boom. Mortgage rates were almost 16% in some places.
One of the hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran is shown to a crowd outside the diplomatic mission in Iran on November 9, 1979.
(Associated Press)
Furthermore, his reelection prospects were doomed in 1980 after Iranian revolutionaries seized 52 American hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the Carter administration embarrassed itself with a failed rescue attempt.
To many voters, the Democratic president appeared naive and overwhelmed with his sharp elbows in Washington. This despite the fact that he had concluded a historic peace pact between the leaders of Israel and Egypt at Camp David.
During the 1976 campaign, Carter's speech included a solemn declaration: “I want a government full of compassion, decency, openness, honesty, brotherhood and love like the American people.”
In 1980, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan turned against the incumbent and found a receptive audience: “Mr. Carter didn't give us a government as good as the people. He gave us a government as good as Jimmy Carter. And we know that’s not good enough.”
Reagan won in a landslide in the Electoral College.
Former President Carter teaches Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, on August 23, 2015.
(David Goldman/Associated Press)
But Carter, with his humanitarian and diplomatic contributions, became arguably our greatest ex-president.
He was extremely energetic and persistent throughout his life – practically to the end.
I wrote an obituary column for Carter nearly two years ago when he entered hospice care after deciding to forego “additional medical procedures” for a melanoma that had spread to his brain and liver. Then he lasted until Sunday at the age of 100.
In 1976, Carter gave a fresh face and a cleaner air to cynical voters who had lost respect for the presidency because of Richard Nixon's Watergate scandals and the lies that Nixon and his predecessor Lyndon Johnson had told them about the Vietnam War Air.
“My name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for president,” the initially little-known candidate began each speech, always with a folksy grin. He ran against a crowded field of more established competitors, including eventually California Governor Jerry Brown.
Carter would immediately add: “My wife Rosalynn and I have been married for 29½ years. She’s the only woman I’ve ever” – pause – “loved.”
Frankly, I found this a bit strange – that the candidate felt it necessary to tell voters that he had only loved one woman. But voters apparently ate it up. He won one contest after another, eventually ousting incumbent Gerald Ford.
No rival could surpass him.
And he was always available to the news media and wasn't afraid to chat with reporters. Initially, he traveled 100 miles to be interviewed by a small town newspaper reporter.
I once met him standing alone on a street corner in Iowa. “Stay here, George,” he told me. “I'm going to call a press conference.” He went to a pay phone, called a staff member, and soon a few television and newspaper reporters showed up.
Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and Mayor Richard J. Daley at the Illinois State Democratic Convention in Chicago on September 9, 1976.
(Thomas O'Halloran / PhotoQuest/Getty Images)
Later in the Illinois primary, Carter also showed he could schmooze with powerful machine bosses, particularly Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. In Iowa and New Hampshire, Carter had attacked political professionals. But in Chicago he developed a strong alliance with Chief Daley.
I still remember how Carter, Daley and actor Mickey Rooney walked side by side and led the magnificent St. Patrick's Day parade in Chicago, the day after the Georgian won the Illinois primary and became the undisputed frontrunner in the election became.
But Carter never changed his rhetoric, always speaking plainly and avoiding fancy words.
“What voters are looking for,” he told a television interviewer, “is someone who can run the government competently, who understands their problems and tells the truth. “We're not concerned with ideology this year.”
Another trademark of his standard speech: “I will never lead you astray. I will never tell you a lie.”
But honestly, he confused a lot of people with contradictions about where he stood on some issues, including abortion and busing to integrate public schools.
After Carter won the Iowa caucuses, the state's Democratic chairman, who was neutral in the campaign, was asked whether he thought voters had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion.
“Misunderstood, misunderstood? “Carter represents three different positions on this,” the party leader replied.
While campaigning in the Wisconsin primary one morning in Milwaukee, I heard Carter pushing a position on school busing that seemed to appeal to a predominantly black congregation.
Then at noon, speaking to white voters at a bowling alley, he earned nods of approval by claiming that busing should be voluntary and locally controlled.
Whatever. It worked politically.
President-elect Jimmy Carter flashes a familiar smile as he speaks to reporters at his home in Plains, Georgia, on January 8, 1977. He announced that Vice President-elect Walter Mondale would make a series of foreign trips early in his term.
(Associated Press)
Carter loved to show off his charming hometown of Plains, population 683. I accompanied him there on an unforgettable day.
Locals had gathered around a loading dock to watch reporters sitting in swings and rocking chairs questioning the future president. A freight train was interrupted.
“We have to wait for the train to pass,” Carter said. “That doesn’t happen often. But in Plains it’s a custom to watch the train go by.”
Voters at the time were drawn to Carter's down-to-earth style and grin. Would they be today?
Probably not, unfortunately. Half a century later, we are too polarized and jaded.