President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

I should add that Carter had poor relations with every element of the Democratic coalition while in office and that his micromanaging style led to a series of unforced errors in matters large and small. A better, or perhaps better to say more conventional politician might've avoided those errors, but I seriously doubt he or she could've made much of a dent on the problems I listed above.

 

Nobody liked Carter. Not his own partisans in Congress. Not even his Secret Service detail.
What he has done with his life since is remarkable and worthy of great praise.

 

He was too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals. A complex figure that makes for fascinating historical inquiry.

 

Same could be said to slightly varying degrees about Obama and Clinton. It’s the Democratic tightrope. Carter didn’t walk it well enough to get re-elected.

 

Carter presented himself as an outsider in the first election post-Watergate, but that came back to haunt him when he needed help from insiders.

 

Could be said also that Dole and Romney respectively veered too far right out of the comfort zone (of the nation and especially of the individuals themselves) at the time. And going farther back, Goldwater, arguably the first modern conservative presidential nominee, got trounced by LBJ, who had just ramrodded the Civil Rights Act through that summer.

 

*Goldwater is right — far right.*

But it was little Susie in the bomb ad that sank Goldwater.

 

Fun fact: The famous "Daisy" commercial aired only once. OTOH, a Johnson ad showing a pair of hands tearing up a Social Security card blasting Goldwater for wanting to privatize Social Security ran hundreds of times in hundreds of market.

 

Carter might also be viewed far more favorably, and would have done much better on election night, had Reagan committed treason by sabotaging his effort to get the hostages returned before election day.

As it was, every single one came back alive.

Trump needs seven or eight golf carts to play a round of golf?

 

You mean it wasn’t because The Iranians were scared Reagan was going to nuke them?

 

This is conspiratorial nonsense. If Reagan's people had actually struck a deal before the election and they had controlled the narrative (which was easier to do in 1980), the electoral result would have been Mondale-like. Carter would've been crushed.

 

Carter wanted us out of the Middle East.

Reagan was jumping in with both feet.

Oil. Follow the money. Always, follow the money.