How Jimmy Won: on Principles & Values
Born into a privileged world surrounded by poverty
President Jimmy Carter was born into a privileged world surrounded by poverty. He grew up with blacks aqs friends and self-made millionaires as relatives, an aristocrat in the midst of 20th century slavery. His father was a segregationist, his mother the
radic-lib of her day.Part of him was naval officer, Sunday-school teacher, scholar, engineer, liberal, businessman, conservative. Primarily, he was a politician. And those of us who covered him found him the most complex and
interesting of our time. His enemies said he was consumed with selfish ambition, a ruthless opportunist who would change his politics to further his climb to the top. Yet his ambition was not only for himself, but for others.
He said to me once, “I feel like I have a certain amount of talent and ability and one life to live and I don’t want to waste it. I’d like it to be meaningful to myself and the people around me.”
Source: How Jimmy Won, by Kandy Stroud, p. 11
Jan 1, 1977
Leapfrogged liberalism; focused on managing bureaucracy
Carter’s politics fit no simple category. He could be conservative on abortion and welfare reform and taxes, and simplifying the federal bureaucracy, liberal on programs like National Health Insurance, Day Care, ERA, cutting the defense budget.
Like Robert Kennedy, he became a new kind of liberal, leapfrogging over the old liberalism he thought to be obsolete, unworkable, divisive. He questioned the old shibboleths of welfare and federal paternalism. He was more interested in a
manageable bureaucracy, an America back at work, with financial and judicial equality for the poor as well as the rich.Above all, he was misunderstood. Being Southern, he would be, and being rural Southern, he would be even more so.
Being a born-again Bible-toting Baptist in an ever more Godless world did not help. Snobbism accounted for part of the lack of understanding. And yet, on November 2, 1976, James Earl Carter, Jr., was elected the 39th President of the United States.
Source: How Jimmy Won, by Kandy Stroud, p. 13
Jan 1, 1977
My greatest strength is that I am an ordinary man
Carter said often, “I have never claimed to be better or wiser than any other person. I think my greatest strengthis that I am an ordinary man, just like all of you, one who has worked and learned and loved his
family and made mistakes and tried to correct them without always succeeding.” He was just plain “Jimmy.”
Source: How Jimmy Won, by Kandy Stroud, p.425
Jan 1, 1977
Broad appeal by straddling key issues
Although Gerald Ford called him someone who “wavers, wiggle, wanders, and waffles,” Carter established a broad-based appeal by selling himself as both a liberal and a conservative,
straddling issues with the agility of a tightrope walker: for and against abortion; for and against bussing; for and against prayer in the schools; for and against right-to-work laws;
for and against big business. Pummeling his audience with statistics he convinced them he understood complex issues well enough to be President.
But with his talk of compassion and decency and truth and love, he conveyed he cared first and foremost for what touched human beings.
Source: How Jimmy Won, by Kandy Stroud, p.425-6
Jan 1, 1977
Page last updated: Jun 09, 2013