I thought Jimmy Carter could have been a great president

[southern democrat]

if he hadn't got backstabbed by his own party.I believe he was truly a visonary and the world would be a much better place now if he could have gotten cooperation with the house and senate.He could have governed more effectively and got his ideas enacted.Agree or disagree?

[diplomats]

1. He is a great man who was not a great politician

he did have major problems with his own party, as you point out. And if it weren't for the hostage crisis he would've won reelection. After the fact, we learned about the deal not to release the hostages until after the election.

[whathappened]

2. agree

i like jimmy and no one is going to covince me different , this man was just a man who cared about the world we lived in and had no rise to gloryin his mind , like jr. wants to remeber as . he did'nt stand a chance well in office because of the congress and there own missions

[southern democrat]

3. What about him for secretary of state?

[PAMod]

4. He'll be 80 on October 1, 2004

That might be a little 'long in the tooth' for a Sec. of State. I think Carter and Clinton both will be put to good use by a Democratic President.

[unblock]

5. backstabbed by his own party?

well, wait a minute here. in 1975-76, when he was running for president, ford was president, serving out the rest of nixon's ill-gotten 2nd term.

the republican party had both feet in the grave after the triple whammy of agnew resigning to face tax fraud charges in maryland, nixon resigning to avoid impeachment, and ford pardoning nixon for no good reason except probably that it was the deal (explicit or otherwise) for appointing him v.p. so that he could become the first ever president never to face a national election.

so what did carter run on? mostly it was image, i'm jus' plain folk from plains, a little ol' peanut fahmer. but when he did talk politics, he chastized the democratic congress for not solving all that ails us.

he won the election because people knew the republicans needed the boot despite the fact that carter refused to play to that (obvious) issue (he would have won in a landslide had he gone on the attack.

anyway, the pointless attacks on congress pissed of many members of his own party. carter didn't seem to get that as president he would have to work with these people.

bottom line is that carter was not an innocent bystander when his party didn't support him 110%.

this was probably the only major thing he actually did wrong in his administration. the rest of the stuff (oil shocks, inflation, hostage crisis) were not his fault and he did what a president could to solve them. he just picked the wrong four years to be president.

how different things would be if reagan had won in '76. he would have become the republican party's, ... well, ... carter ....

[papau]

6. He could not market the fact that economy grew 3.25% per yr under

his leadership - about the same as Reagan's 3.33% per yr but Reagan has this media glow great economy and Carter does not.

granted much of the above is due to the stupidity and laziness of the Financial Media and the corruption of the news media - but his "stagflation" and "get used to slower growth" comments sucked as a way to market oneself as a leader.