It took Jimmy Carter going into hospice care for America to fully appreciate him | Opinion
It made national news when Jimmy Carter was elected governor of Georgia in 1970.
After succeeding Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox, who owned an Atlanta diner and infamously threatened Black patrons with a pistol, Carter seemed like a savior. He was also an antidote to the political cynicism of the Watergate era, where President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace as Carter was ascending on the national stage. Carter’s refreshing smile and humanity had real resonance.
In a brilliant article in Rolling Stone, journalist Hunter S. Thompson wrote a piece describing Carter’s Law Day speech in Georgia, where he outshone Sen. Ted Kennedy and others in 1974 with his piercing analysis of the American criminal justice system. In a manner that was rare among politicians of his era, Carter accurately described our justice system as egregiously stacked in favor of the rich and white over lower income people of color.
Despite this, Carter was given no real chance to win the presidential nomination. The most common responses were “Jimmy Who?” and “president of what?”
He was barely known outside of Georgia, yet Americans were fascinated by his biography: a peanut farmer? A born-again Baptist deacon? A nuclear submarine officer schooled under Admiral Hyman Rickover? A southerner who hung out with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr.? Carter quoted Bob Dylan and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, which was novel for someone seeking the Oval Office.
Carter won the presidency with 297 electoral votes, fewer than Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Carter did, however, carry all the states of the Confederacy except Virginia, which seems — both then and now — completely out of grasp, even fantastical. It was like the red/blue map of America was inverted, a seismic political event.
It was a moment when America was overtaken by niceness after a period of darkness and conniving. Imagine that now.
I met Carter once on a rope line and saw him up close a few times in Minnesota. He was compactly built, roughly 5’ 10.” Those teeth were as advertised. I was once invited to fish with him but a family commitment made that impossible. I did a cartoon for him and he wrote me a handwritten thank you note, which I still have. To my eternal regret, I never did go fishing with him.
I have heard so many people over the years say Carter was incompetent as president. The fact is, he was supremely competent, but not in the ways of the congressional cocktail party. Next to JFK, Carter was our most aspirational president.
I don’t think Carter failed us so much as we failed him.
Along with Ted Kennedy’s ridiculous 1980 primary challenge that weakened Carter immeasurably, there was a lack of liberal enthusiasm for him. The Iranian hostage crisis put Carter’s re-election hopes in crisis and, if not for a tragic helicopter accident during a failed rescue mission to free the hostages, Carter may well have been re-elected.
At 98 and now in hospice care, we will reflect on the meaning of his life as one of decency, hard work, unheralded acts, altruism and walking the walk. His post-presidency work through the Carter Center has saved countless lives. He and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter built countless homes for poor people with Habitat for Humanity.
Unlike every president that followed him, Carter did not trade on his time in the Oval Office to get rich.
Those who cling to the mantra that he wasn’t successful may want to reflect on what the presidency means. The president isn’t supposed to be a national game show host. The president should lead by example.
As Carter himself said in that 1974 Law Day speech: “The course of human events, even the greatest historical events, is not determined by the leaders of a nation or a state, like presidents or governors or senators. They are controlled by the combined wisdom and courage and commitment and discernment and unselfishness and compassion and love and idealism of the common ordinary people.”
Through his enduring example, Jimmy Carter may well have been our most successful president.
This story was originally published February 26, 2023 at 5:00 AM.