Jimmy Carter as President: Fixable or why not another guy?

By general comments, any late 1970s US Administrations were doomed to fail and be pulverized in the 1980 elections. Others says that much of such failure, or at least the general US sense of malaise prevalent at such time, was responsibility of one man: Jimmy Carter.

My question: is Jimmy Carter, as President, fixable in order to be reelected in 1980 or at least to avoid the Republican maelstrom? Or would be better to take a line from his own book and "Why not Another Guy"?.
 
Carter held consistent leads against Reagan until late into the election cycle. Many people were concerned with the perceived extremism of Reagan, and naturally came to the conclusion that it was better to stick with Carter. Of course, that didn't come to be true.
 
Don’t know...Carter was never a popular President and maybe just held initial advantages against Reagan only, as mentioned, given its potential “extremism”...if this holds true, a more standard Republican would just crush even harder Carter...
So, would say one of the three possibilities: 1-the late 1970s were extremely hard and anyone would be destroyed by the events, 2-Major changes were needed at Carter’s administrations even before 1980, 3- Carter wasn’t Presidential material (at least for such hard four years) and Democrats would had more chance with another guy...
 
I tend to think differently than the majority. 1980 is undoubtedly winnable if a few things happen.

1st: Carter rescues the hostages. The rescue mission in OTL was almost a success. Just say mechanical failure doesn’t happen and the mission is a success. Carter can’t be seen as weak.

2nd: Eliminate Ted Kennedy. This is easy. Have him still mess up Roger Mudd’s interview and Carter point out his integrity in comparison of Kennedy. That should take care of that.

3rd: Anderson doesn’t run. This liberal support goes for Carter.

4th: the debates. Just have carter do better all around and not skip them.

By doing this, Carter may actually win and lead throughout. Or if someone other than Reagan wins the nomination, the greatest 11th hour comeback since Truman.
 

Driftless

Donor
One pivot point would be to have the Carter sufficiently call out the Shah of Iran in 1977 or 78' on his human rights record, to the extent that it displaces the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran. The anger from the Shah coming to the US for cancer treatment helped fuel emotions that drove the Embassy takeover. The subsequent and ongoing hostage situation became a nightly news leader going into the 1980's election and a definite drag on Carter's public image. The Iranian Revolution was going to happen anyway, and the US intelligence services misread it's extent and the accompanying anti-American feeling. I'm not sure how you pull off that change without 20-20 foresight though. Plus that rejection of an old ally (the Shah) would have had American conservatives in an uproar about the US stepping back from commitments.

The Iranian Revolution also lead to yet another disruption in oil deliveries that upset world oil prices to the extent it caused significant financial problems in the developed world. Perhaps again with 20-20 foresight, have Carter be more proactive and extensive in releasing US oil reserves to stabilize supply and pricing, partly offsetting world financial displacements.

My own personal wish in the wake of the second oil crisis ('73 & '79)- that Carter would have announced the US will launched an accelerated alternative energy development project on par with the space program, so in decades to come the US is less dependent on fossil fuels. To be absolutely sure, in 1979 that idea would have sent Carter to the showers, and oil and coal state Representatives and Senators would have lined up to lynch Carter. It should have been done anyway for the good of the country and the world.
 
All Carter has to do is appoint a different Fed chair who doesn't do the equivalent of the Volcker shock. That avoids the 1980 recession (prior to which Carter's approval ratings had recovered into the mid to high fifties) and then he wins reelection.
 

nbcman

Donor
I tend to think differently than the majority. 1980 is undoubtedly winnable if a few things happen.

1st: Carter rescues the hostages. The rescue mission in OTL was almost a success. Just say mechanical failure doesn’t happen and the mission is a success. Carter can’t be seen as weak.

2nd: Eliminate Ted Kennedy. This is easy. Have him still mess up Roger Mudd’s interview and Carter point out his integrity in comparison of Kennedy. That should take care of that.

3rd: Anderson doesn’t run. This liberal support goes for Carter.

4th: the debates. Just have carter do better all around and not skip them.

By doing this, Carter may actually win and lead throughout. Or if someone other than Reagan wins the nomination, the greatest 11th hour comeback since Truman.
With respect to item 1, Operation Eagle Claw was nowhere close to a success and was not going to be one with the equipment and planning of OTL. If by some way they managed to get the helos out from Desert Base 1, the US forces still had to fight their way in to rescue the Embassy hostages and extract them. I hate to say this but it was better that the mission was scrubbed early than having even more casualties of the rescue force and the hostages.

EDIT: if the Operation went further it may have helped President Carter’s re-election as it could have led to a real war between the US and Iran. But that’s a costly way to get Mr Carter reelected.
 
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3rd: Anderson doesn’t run. This liberal support goes for Carter.
Alternatively, Anderson could have run a campaign more focused on economic issues and taken more votes from Reagan. IRRC, this was his initial strategy, but once he started sinking in the polls, he decided to just go with full-throated social liberalism.
 
All Carter has to do is appoint a different Fed chair who doesn't do the equivalent of the Volcker shock. That avoids the 1980 recession (prior to which Carter's approval ratings had recovered into the mid to high fifties) and then he wins reelection.
According to the approval ratings, Carter crossed the negative threshold by March 1978 and never got back, expect for two brief periods (one being during the Iran Crisis, a potential Round the Flag effect)...so, could be understood that Volker wasn’t the main source of Carter’s unpopularity...
 

samcster94

Banned
I tend to think differently than the majority. 1980 is undoubtedly winnable if a few things happen.

1st: Carter rescues the hostages. The rescue mission in OTL was almost a success. Just say mechanical failure doesn’t happen and the mission is a success. Carter can’t be seen as weak.

2nd: Eliminate Ted Kennedy. This is easy. Have him still mess up Roger Mudd’s interview and Carter point out his integrity in comparison of Kennedy. That should take care of that.

3rd: Anderson doesn’t run. This liberal support goes for Carter.

4th: the debates. Just have carter do better all around and not skip them.

By doing this, Carter may actually win and lead throughout. Or if someone other than Reagan wins the nomination, the greatest 11th hour comeback since Truman.
Dole or H.W. are the most obvious alternate candidates.
 
Carter held consistent leads against Reagan until late into the election cycle. Many people were concerned with the perceived extremism of Reagan, and naturally came to the conclusion that it was better to stick with Carter. Of course, that didn't come to be true.

The idea that Carter was leading until the last minute is a myth. From May on, Reagan had a lead that he never lost, though it was a narrow one from August to October. http://themonkeycage.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/trialheats1980.png

(It is true that in early 1980, Carter did lead Reagan. I think this is largely explained by the tendency of Americans to rally behind the president in the early stage of an international crisis. Also, of course, Reagan was not yet the GOP nominee. But Carter's job approval ratings were very low before the hostaqe crisis gave them a temporary boost. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/popularity.php?pres=39)
 
The idea that Carter was leading until the last minute is a myth. From May on, Reagan had a lead that he never lost, though it was a narrow one from August to October. http://themonkeycage.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/trialheats1980.png

(It is true that in early 1980, Carter did lead Reagan. I think this is largely explained by the tendency of Americans to rally behind the president in the early stage of an international crisis. Also, of course, Reagan was not yet the GOP nominee. But Carter's job approval ratings were very low before the hostaqe crisis gave them a temporary boost. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/popularity.php?pres=39)

Agree...Carter seems fragile and unpopular since mid 1978...if Carter’s hold and leadership were so significant by late 1979, Ted Kennedy would never dared to challenge a sitting president or, at least, would be a dark horse in the Democratic primaries
 
All Carter has to do is appoint a different Fed chair who doesn't do the equivalent of the Volcker shock. That avoids the 1980 recession (prior to which Carter's approval ratings had recovered into the mid to high fifties) and then he wins reelection.

In June 1979--two months before Volcker was appointed--Jimmy Carter's job approval rating was 28 percent, according to Gallup. http://news.gallup.com/poll/116677/...ings-gallup-historical-statistics-trends.aspx

According to Pew, Carter's job approval rating during July-August 1979 ranged from a low of 29 to a high of 33. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/popularity.php?pres=39

Maybe you think the economy just before Volcker was appointed was fundamentally sound. The American people certainly don't seem to have felt that way.

Yes, the hostage crisis temporarily caused Carter's ratings to surge. That sort of thing--caused by the impulse of the American people to rally behind the president in times of crisis--is predictable, and so is its fading (remember GHW Bush's ratings at the time of Desert Storm and GW Bush's after 9/11 and then again after the fall of Baghdad).
 
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