WI: Carter runs in 1984?

What if Jimmy Carter were to run against Ronald Reagan in 1984? Would he do better than Mondale? Would he win? What might the effect on his reputation be?
 
There is absolutely no chance that Jimmy Carter could win against Reagan in 1984, hell he would never make it past the primaries, let alone compete in the general election. After leaving office Carter was seen as one of the worst presidents due to Stagflation, the handling of the Iran Hostage crisis, and the 1979 energy crisis. Carter did have some success on the foreign front, but Americans will almost always pay more attention to domestic successes, and with the economy doing poorly Carter was painted as inefficient. Carter got sweeped in the electoral college and would not be seen by the DNC as a viable candidate with any sort of success. He would have to have high popularity with the people and dominate the primaries, something I don't see happening besides him winning a few states. With Reagan's landslide against Mondale, there is little that the Democrats can do to attack him and win a majority of the votes. Then lastly there's the fact that no previous president can really win election again. Grover Cleveland got lucky because he was well liked and there were few candidates within the Democratic Party that could compete with him. Dewey and Stevenson's consecutive losses to both Roosevelt/Truman and Eisenhower respectively made a candidate running back to back elections after the first loss seem extremely unviable. Nixon was only able to pull it off thanks to Wallace and Reagan's poor nationwide appeal nationally in the primaries compared to Nixon.

In short there is no feasible way for Carter to win in 84 if he was the president from 77-81. You would need Watergate or worse levels of scandal within the Reagan administration, a horrendous foreign policy event handled poorly by Reagan, or the economy to tank in 83 and 84. And even then I don't think Carter would stand a chance against Mondale.
 
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