When would have been the best time for a Jimmy Carter comeback?

My love for Jimmy Carter is intense and Jimmy Carter is like Trump IF he actually cared about people and wasn’t an idiot. Unfortunately, Jimmy Carter had no idea the workings of the national government although the international crisises of the late 70s were unlike anything in living memory at that point. Anybody elected President in 1976 would not have come out unscathed four years later.

If anything they're underselling Carter in that video. In 1980 he deregulated the alcohol industry, triggering the microbrewery revolution. He forced a government shutdown on the grounds that it'd be bad to spend too much on the military and blow up the deficit (while at the same time overseeing the buildup of America's military post-Vietnam, so it was all prudential rather than ideological). He was for decriminalizing marijuana.
 
Carter making a comeback in 2000 would be a hell of a timeline. I think it'd require Gingrich succeeding in forcing out Clinton. Come 2000 Gore is weak and disliked and Gingrich is the GOP nominee after having claimed his Arkansas scalp. Ol' Jimmy comes in on his white horse to bring some good character back to the White House, just as he did in 1976.

And for the running mate? Colin Powell! Although Lieberman also sort of fits the bill, having criticized Clinton OTL.

And still lose, I don't think you realize how little respect JC gets as president. Every single disaster that happened during his presidency would be made into an attack ad. His presidency was a disaster.
 
Ford would win that one if the Democrats were stupid enough to put Carter against him. Frankly anyone this side of Khomeini or Quadaffi would have beaten Carter.
True for OTL. But in ATL, there is a chance, however remote, that the GOP presidency (Bush Sr.) would make 1974-1980 look good. In that case, a Ford-Carter rematch is not ASB. My opinion is that Ford and Carter lost not over hatred over leadership, but the notion that somebody else needs to do better.
 
Even then he has the baggage of his own presidency. Almost ANY Democrat would have beaten Carter in the Democratic Primaries. Picking Walter Mondale was already epic stupidity, picking Carter would be even worse.

Running Mondale was not epic stupidity. The guy had been a perfectly OK Vice-President and Senator, and unlike Jimmy actually was trusted by the industrial wing of the party. The problem with Mondale was that the wheels fell off before anyone had a chance to stop things (Ferraro, the tax increase speech, and so on).
 
And still lose, I don't think you realize how little respect JC gets as president. Every single disaster that happened during his presidency would be made into an attack ad. His presidency was a disaster.

Carter was a weak President, but hardly a disaster. His rate of job growth was better than Reagan's, and solar panels on the White House - along with similar measures - was ahead of its time.
 
Running Mondale was not epic stupidity. The guy had been a perfectly OK Vice-President and Senator, and unlike Jimmy actually was trusted by the industrial wing of the party. The problem with Mondale was that the wheels fell off before anyone had a chance to stop things (Ferraro, the tax increase speech, and so on).

The problem with Mondale is that he was CARTER'S VP. Anyone connected with Carter in 1984 was going to be problematical, not talking his VP.
 
Carter was a weak President, but hardly a disaster. His rate of job growth was better than Reagan's, and solar panels on the White House - along with similar measures - was ahead of its time.

By the end of his presidency, he had double-digit inflation, unemployment and interest rates. I think that he is the ONLY US president in history to have that.
 
By the end of his presidency, he had double-digit inflation, unemployment and interest rates. I think that he is the ONLY US president in history to have that.

And yet, the answer to Reagan's question of whether you are better off than four years ago was actually "Yes." Carter's tenure was generally improvement, until the 1979-1980 downturn (and those double digit interest rates? That was Carter's appointee trying to get inflation under control).

Edit - unemployment never hit double digits under Carter. It did under Reagan.
 
And yet, the answer to Reagan's question of whether you are better off than four years ago was actually "Yes." Carter's tenure was generally improvement, until the 1979-1980 downturn (and those double digit interest rates? That was Carter's appointee trying to get inflation under control).

Edit - unemployment never hit double digits under Carter. It did under Reagan.

What Carter laid down as groundwork is what made Reagan look good. If not for Carter's policy's Reagan would of been a one term president and I don't get how people don't see that. Had Carter somehow won in 80 ( cough Iran going better cough) Carter would be looked as a very above average president I feel also I think some of his policy's would make for a interesting world right now.
 
To quote from Protect and Survive Miami: End of Watch (it's a character who's a Carter fan who thinks this):
He'd been handed threes and fives and was expected to beat the house. No man could've overcome that

Those are my thoughts on the Carter presidency; to be fair, Carter's mishandling of the Iran hostage crisis and firing half his cabinet in July of 1979 didn't help his case...

Any presidency in the late 1970s would have been a likely failure, IMO, given what was going on...

OTOH, he's had the best post-presidency of any president in American history...
 
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What Carter laid down as groundwork is what made Reagan look good. If not for Carter's policy's Reagan would of been a one term president and I don't get how people don't see that. Had Carter somehow won in 80 ( cough Iran going better cough) Carter would be looked as a very above average president I feel also I think some of his policy's would make for a interesting world right now.

Carter being an epic failure is what made Reagan look good. All Reagan do to look good against Carter is not trip over his own feet. Every Partisan Democrat will see every successful Republican as one building on his Democratic predecessor while the every Partisan Republican sees it as just the opposite. Carter has been and always will be an epic failure as president.
 
Carter being an epic failure is what made Reagan look good. All Reagan do to look good against Carter is not trip over his own feet. Every Partisan Democrat will see every successful Republican as one building on his Democratic predecessor while the every Partisan Republican sees it as just the opposite. Carter has been and always will be an epic failure as president.

In what ways outside of Iran? I'll give you he failed at dealing with congress right but he dealt with the USSR the way he should have.
He pushed forward green energy that had he won reelection would meant we would be in a better shape environmentally
 
Lose in 1976, win the Georgia Senate seat in 1980, maybe win in 1988? (Not quite what the OP wanted but certainly a comeback!)

If Jimmy loses 1976, he's never getting nominated again. He'd be seen as the guy who blew a sure-thing. In fact, Carter losing probably makes the Democrats extremely phobic about nominating Southerners, which hurts Clinton.
 
Carter being an epic failure is what made Reagan look good. All Reagan do to look good against Carter is not trip over his own feet. Every Partisan Democrat will see every successful Republican as one building on his Democratic predecessor while the every Partisan Republican sees it as just the opposite. Carter has been and always will be an epic failure as president.

OK. You hate Carter. We get it.

There is, however, the obvious point that up until the debate, the 1980 election was widely predicted to be a close one, which does not suggest Complete Disaster. Oh, and if Carter were the nightmare you claim, he would have lost to Ted Kennedy before he even got to the general.
 
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