In Memoriam: Jimmy Carter, 1924-2024
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What led to Jimmy Carter's presidency?
In fact, Jimmy Carter has been praised as the nation's greatest former president. I'm Rachel Martin, and you're listening to a special edition of Up First. Today, we're remembering the life of former President Jimmy Carter. And here to talk through Carter's legacy is NPR senior political correspondent Don Gagne. Hey, Don. Hi there. So let's begin our conversation way back in 1976. These were the last few months of the presidential campaign season. America was celebrating, right? It was the bicentennial, although the country was still reeling from the Vietnam War.
You had these countervailing things, right? All the positive nature of the Bicentennial, but the Vietnam War had just wound down literally in the previous year. On top of all of that, the country was in the midst of an energy crisis. There was lots of cynicism among the American people. To take you back to those days, President Gerald Ford was an incumbent president running for a full term in office. Recall that he'd inherited the presidency two years earlier in 1974 when a disgraced Richard Nixon resigned from office as the Watergate scandal just closed in around him.
Right. And then amid all of that, there's this Southerner running on the Democratic ticket, which in and of itself was a big deal, Jimmy Carter. Where did he come from? What was his political genesis?
Boy, it's an understatement to say he was a relative unknown, right? He was from Plains, Georgia, population 236 back in the 1970s. He had been a state senator. He had been recently governor of Georgia. He was a former peanut farmer. So I found this great tape from December of 1973 when I was working on an obit about Carter and And the tape kind of highlights how unknown he really was. Here I am introducing that tape in that obit. He was hardly a household name. In fact, as his time in the statehouse wound down, he popped up on the TV game show, What's My Line?
Would our first challenger enter and sign in, please?
On the show, a panel of celebrities tries to guess the profession of the mystery person sitting right in front of them. So there's Governor Carter on the set, smiling that famous Jimmy Carter smile, and the panelists have no idea who he is.
And let's begin the questioning with Arlene Francis. Is it a service that has to do with women?
Yes, it certainly does. Not enough.
So what you hear, Rachel, are these celebrity panelists asking Jimmy Carter what he does for a living and trying to figure out. And they go on and on with different questions to him, trying to figure out what his profession is. Again, they had no clue who this guy was.
Which is sort of interesting because Jimmy Carter's humility was something that also just kind of set him apart. But he had to get traction as a candidate, right? Like he had to get out there and sell himself. How did he do that?
Right. And he did kind of use that humility. He directly confronted the cynicism that a lot of Americans were feeling at the time. He was modest, and that sounds like a strange thing to say. This is a modest person seeking the White House. But he did portray a certain modesty as a candidate. He promised the people—again, this is in the wake of Watergate—he promised the people he would never lie to them. He promised to restore basic trust in the nation's institutions. It all sounds so old-fashioned, right? Right, right. It's also important to note that he ran a real grassroots campaign. He kind of embraced the fact that nobody knew him. Listen to this quote. It's from Steve Hockman. He is from the Carter Center. And he was one of Carter's longtime assistants back then. And he told NPR in an interview that Carter worked hard at that basic retail campaigning.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What led to Jimmy Carter's presidency?
0:26–7:26
2
What challenges did Carter face during his presidency?
7:26–10:42
3
How did Jimmy Carter's leadership style differ?
10:42–13:43
4
What were some of Carter's significant accomplishments?
13:43–15:39
5
How did personal issues affect Carter's presidency?
15:39–21:21
6
What was the significance of Carter's malaise speech?
21:21–27:11
Speakers
8 identifiedMore from Up First from NPR
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