AHC: Carter wins a second term

Alzheimers hit reagan early and VERY visibly in debate
Anderson takes about ten percent of the OTL Reagan vote, and map looks something like this:
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It's going to take a heart attack, stroke or visible Alzheimers to prevent Reagan from winning. Looking ahead, market trends in real estate and petroleum will halt double-digit inflation, raising the president's ratings. Now, what about 1984. Mondale will be the visible heir-apparent, but he is much more liberal than Carter. Will the Dems go for a moderate like Glenn?
 
The problem with the Carter Presidency is that Jimmy Carter made many easily avoidable mistakes, and generally shot himself in the foot over and over. Often he lost popularity for the sake of pursuing a morally correct policy position (e.g. not pursuing a variety of military options during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, for fear of that the hostages would be killed, even though it would've dramatically boosted his popularity), and other times, he pursued policies that he personally believed were good, but were incredibly agitating for the Democratic base (e.g. deregulating the transportation industry in spite of past support from the Teamster's Union, Carter's crackdown on 'pork barrel' legislation in Democratic districts).

Many of these positions couldn't be changed without dramatically altering Carter's personality, but others could be corrected. Carter could've easily won re-election with an 'ideal' 1978 PoD that would have to be followed by a series of smart decisions, Carter could've won a tight but do-able 1979 PoD, and might've even been able to pull off a 1980 PoD.

1978 PoD (ideal, but unlikely scenario for Carter's re-election): Anwar Sadat pulls out of the Camp David Negotiations. Carter publicly blames Sadat, which gets the Jewish lobby back on his side (IOTL, many Jewish-American organizations, especially in New York, backed Ted Kennedy's primary challenge as they felt the Camp David Accords were a betrayal of Israel). There may be another war in the Middle East, but Carter won't be blamed for it, if anything he'll be praised for trying to prevent it. Domestically, everything continues as IOTL, until the 'Crisis of Confidence' speech. Contrary to popular belief, it was a very well received speech; the problem was Carter immediately squandered all his political capital by having his entire cabinet resign. If he doesn't do that, he could use his momentum with the public to use more monetarist policies to combat inflation than the Democrats in Congress would typically be comfortable with. As for Iran, you could either have the American embassy close up shop after the first attempt at seizing the embassy in February 1979 (thus preventing the successful September 1979 seizure) or have Operation: Eagle Claw succeed by orchestrating the operation with an astrological team involved, who could've advised when it would be best to launch the operation, thereby avoiding the sandstorms that ruined the whole thing IOTL. That being said, if you want to make Carter as popular as possible, a successful operation is better than one not being necessary in the first place. If, ITTL, Ted Kennedy even bothers to run, having the Jewish lobby behind Carter could land him a New York win, and prevent a drawn-out primary challenge. The cherry on top would be Carter not participating in the Presidential debates with Reagan. Although not taking part did hurt him, once he got on the stage with Reagan, the results hurt him even more. With all of these combined, Carter would've been able to win handily. This PoD is far enough back for it to possibly be Carter vs. Bush in the election (rather than Carter vs. Reagan vs. Anderson), but he would've won re-election regardless.

1979 PoD: Similar to the first scenario, but with the PoD being the 'Crisis of Confidence' aftermath rather than Camp David. As in the last scenario, he successfully uses the political capital of the speech, and pulls a successful Eagle Claw. He would still have to duke it out in a prolonged fight with Ted Kennedy, but it should be enough for a close shave, especially if he doesn't debate Reagan. You could say this is the most 'good' result, as you get the Camp David Accord, and a largely bloodless resolution to the hostage crisis. This would be an even tighter win with Carter vs. Bush, but it would still be do-able.

1980 PoD: Operation: Eagle Claw succeeds. This doesn't make the economy any better, but no matter what, it would be a huge boost in the polls. If Carter doubles down on the negative campaigning against Reagan to make him look like an unhinged warmongering anarcho-capitalist, and doesn't debate him, Carter may be able to pull off a squeaker of a win.
 
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