The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
On a December afternoon nearly 50 years ago, I got a phone call from Jody Powell, the press secretary to a little-known former governor of Georgia who had this bizarre notion he would be the country’s next president.
After filling me in on his boss’s plans for formally announcing his candidacy the next day, he asked if I’d like to speak to “Jimmy.” Sure, I said, and he connected me with the soft-spoken Southerner whose presidential aspirations I’d been watching with skepticism and some amusement.
As it turned out, Carter’s rise from the hamlet of Plains, Ga. (pop. 683), to the White House was the most remarkable political story I ever covered — at least until Donald Trump’s election. And the man whose 100th birthday we mark this week was probably the most unusual to win the presidency in the 20th century.
A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who became a nuclear engineer, he left service to revitalize his family’s rural Georgia peanut farm after his father died.
Though his 1970 gubernatorial campaign was hardly high-minded, once elected he helped erase vestiges of the state’s segregationist past. As president, he helped launch the long process of bringing peace to the Middle East, an effort most of his successors have pursued, unfortunately with only mixed success.
During his lengthy post-presidential years, he has written over 30 bestselling books — his main source of income. A voice for human rights around the world, he has been a prod to succeeding presidents, both Democrats and Republicans.
Despite being afflicted with various forms of cancer, he long ago became the nation’s longest-lived president, still politically aware and hoping — son Chip said — to cast a ballot next month for another trailblazer, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Though highly intelligent, Carter was often politically tone deaf, seemingly believing that, since good would inevitably triumph over evil, political compromise was unnecessary. Often rigid, moralistic and humorless, he was as likely to glare at his most loyal aides as to praise them.
He correctly foresaw the Democratic Party needed to recapture the political center. But in the process, he sharpened the internal split with its liberals that contributed to his landslide defeat in 1980.
He sought to strengthen the military and balance the budget. But he failed to cope with an oil shock sending inflation soaring and the 444-day detention of 60 U.S. diplomats by militants in Iran.
Richard Nixon’s resignation in the face of almost certain impeachment and conviction opened the way for an inexperienced moralist who promised not to lie to the American people.
Even in victory, however, Carter had difficulty being gracious. When a press bus took a wrong turn going to the airport, he sought to leave without them until aides dissuaded him. But the delay enabled him to arrive in his hometown as the sun rose.
“I told you I didn’t intend to lose,” he told the hundreds who had waited all night around the old train station that served as his headquarters.
“I came all the way through, through 22 months, and I didn’t get choked up until” — his voice broke, and he paused, dabbing a tear from his left eye before he willed himself to finish — “until I turned the corner and saw you standing here.”
There were few dry eyes. It was a scene none of us ever forgot.
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