Tag Archives: Jimmy Carter likeable

Trust Me: We All Liked President Carter Then Too But…

By now, most of you have likely heard of Jimmy Carter’s recent announcement that he has cancer which has spread to his liver and to his brain. Carter, who is 90 years old, is undergoing radiation and other therapy, and faces an uncertain prognosis. However, he wryly noted in this press conference, hosted at the Carter Center six days ago, that this might be a “propitious time” to cut down on his busy schedule.

If you watched Carter discuss his illness during the press conference, you could not help but admire the courage and sense of humor he exhibited. When asked about the outpouring of affection that has come his way since his illness was revealed, Carter mentioned that he had received well wishes from all the former presidents, as well as President Obama and the Secretary of State, adding slyly that they hadn’t been calling him recently until his illness. He seemed, as much as anyone can be when facing a potentially terminal illness, completely at peace with whatever the outcome might be.

During the question-and-answer portion of the press conference, he was asked if in light of his illness he might reflect on his accomplishments. While he acknowledged that winning the presidency was important, not least because it gave him the platform for his post-presidency work with the Carter Center, it was the latter experience that was the most gratifying aspects of his life (with the important exception of marrying his wife Rosalynn!) Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work through the Carter Center.

Perhaps inevitably, he was asked if there was anything he would have done differently in his life. He acknowledged that he wished he had sent one more helicopter on the Iran hostage rescue attempt. As you will recall, that mission failed due to mechanical failures and accidents involving the helicopters sent to ferry the hostages back home. In his response, Carter suggested, to much laughter, that if the rescue operation had succeeded, he would have won a second term as president!

We should not be surprised that Carter is showing such grace in the face of such a terrible disease. I have remarked in previous posts that his is maybe the most successful ex-presidency we have seen, with perhaps the exception of John Quincy Adams’ post-presidential years in Congress.* Carter’s work through the Carter Center and his other philanthropic endeavors has touched lives across the globe, and he has set a precedent that other ex-presidents have sought to emulate. No wonder Carter often makes the list of most admired people.

But, given his defeat in the 1980 presidential election after serving only one term, it is easy to forget that even while serving as president he was held in relatively high esteem by the public for his personal qualities. As I’ve noted in previous posts, political scientists Morris Fiorina, Samuel Abrams and Jeremy Pope used responses to American National Election surveys in which Americans were asked about their views of presidential candidates to create two broad categories describing respondents’ overall views of the candidates’ personal attributes. As this chart from Fiorina’s New York Times op-ed piece discussing the research shows, Carter had the highest net positive evaluation of any of the two major party presidential candidates in 1952-2000 time period the authors studied. At the same time, his opponent Ronald Reagan had the second lowest rating, “bested” only by Bill Clinton’s dismal personal ratings in 1996. Even while president, then, voters praised Carter’s personal characteristics, if not his performance as president.

The lesson, as I discussed in a previous post that attracted not a little attention among pundits, is that in presidential elections, voters’ evaluations of national conditions and the experience and issue stances of candidates typically matters much more than do considerations of personal qualities, including honesty and trustworthiness. Indeed, running in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, candidate Carter vowed that he “would not lie to the American people.” Sometimes he might have taken that promise too far, as when acknowledging in a Playboy interview that he “looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do–and I have done it–and God forgives me for it.” Of course, Carter beat Gerald Ford in 1976, which one might attribute to voters’ rewarding him for his candor.  However, the gap between Ford and Carter on personal qualities, as measured by Fiorina et al, was smaller than that between Carter and Reagan in 1980.  In the 1980 election, Carter’s perceived honesty was not enough to overcome dismal economic conditions and prevent his defeat by a candidate who wasn’t held in nearly such high personal regard.

And that’s worth remembering in the face of the almost daily barrage of stories trumpeting Hillary Clinton’s evident lack of trustworthiness. Clinton may yet lose this race. But if so it’s likely that perceptions of her trustworthiness won’t be the primary reason why.

*Several readers have suggested that William Howard Taft, who served as the 10th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after leaving the presidency, might be included on this list.  I would also add Herbert Hoover, who chaired two important commissions studying the reorganization of the executive branch during his post-presidential years.

The 2012 Presidential Election Is Most Like This Previous Election

One of the recurring exercises in any presidential election year is the effort by pundits to find the most appropriate historical analogue among previous presidential elections.  What is deemed “appropriate”, however, is usually determined by whether the historical antecedent favors your preferred candidate.  This election cycle has been no exception.  Democrats see strong parallels between the current race and the 2004 contest between John Kerry and George W. Bush.  Although Kerry actually led in some early polls, the election remained quite close until Bush, the first-term incumbent running for reelection, pulled it out with slightly more than 51% of the two-party popular vote. Not surprisingly, Romney supporters don’t believe 2004 has much to say about this election. Instead, they point to 1980, when Ronald Reagan trailed Jimmy Carter in the Gallup Poll for much of the post-Labor Day period only to surge ahead in the closing week, as the most fitting historical parallel.

In this vein, Greg Sargent, writing in yesterday’s Plum Line column for the Washington Post, took issue with the 1980 comparison for several reasons.  The first has to do with the difference in candidate qualities; Sargent writes:   “Reason one: Obama is a better and more likable politician than Jimmy Carter was, and Romney has not proven himself to be Ronald Reagan.”  As evidence, Sargent quotes long-time GOP strategist Ed Rollins who notes that Romney is no Reagan: “There’s no question that on his best day, he’s not a Ronald Reagan…. Traditionally incumbents don’t do as well in debates as challengers for the simple reason that challengers have to stand on the stage and look like an equal. Romney can do that, but Obama is good. He’s likeable. Carter was never likeable.”

If asked, I think many pundits would agree with Rollins’ characterization of Carter; he was the moralizing, preachy politician who – with a smugness bordering on arrogance – castigated Americans for their “crisis of confidence”.   It was small wonder that he was viewed as so much less likable when compared to Reagan – the eternal optimist who spouted homilies about America as the shining “city on a hill”.  Not surprisingly, Reagan pulled ahead after their one and only debate in late October, largely because voters had a stronger personal affinity with  Reagan.  The lesson?  Reagan’s sunny optimism trumped Carter’s dour moralizing.

Alas, Rollins has the story completely backward, as Mo Fiorina reminded us earlier in this this New York Times editorial which I’ve discussed before.    Rather than being disliked, on a personal level Carter was held in far higher regard than Reagan in the eyes of most voters – indeed, despite his low job approval, Carter had the highest-rated personal qualities of any Democratic candidate in the period from 1952-2000, and Reagan had the lowest of any Republican presidential candidate. As Fiorina summarizes: “The Ronald Reagan of October 1980 was not the Reagan of “morning again in America” in 1984, let alone the beloved focus of national mourning in 2004. Many Americans saw the 1980 Reagan as uninformed, reckless, and given to gaffes and wild claims. But despite their misgivings about Reagan, and their view that Carter was a peach of a guy personally, voters opted against four more years of Carter.”

As is often the case, the prevailing view of Carter as unlikeable likely reflects a post-hoc rationalization for why he lost the election, as well as eight years of a largely successful Reagan presidency.  But that’s not how the two candidates were viewed in the run-up to the 1980 election – something Rollins evidently forgets.

But perhaps there’s a second good reason why this year isn’t like 1980? Sargent, again citing Rollins, argues: “Reason two: The electorate is far more polarized now. Rollins notes that a last-minute shift was enabled by the larger role Dem swing voters played at the time. ‘There was a big swing element in the Democratic Party — blue collar Democrats,’ Rollins noted. ‘It’s smaller now.’

Again, I think this analysis is at least in part wrong; as I’ve argued in many previous posts (see here, for example) there’s not much evidence that the electorate is more polarized now than in previous elections.  What has changed is that the choices have become more polarizing.  This may make it less likely that voters of one party will consider voting for the opposing party’s candidate.  But it does not mean that there are not enough undecided voters left to preclude a small shift toward Romney in the closing weeks of this race – and in a tight race, a small shift will be enough.

Is that likely to happen?  I don’t know.  But if it does, it almost surely will have little to do with which candidate is more likeable and instead will turn on more deep-seated voter concerns regarding which candidate is better able to resurrect a moribund economy.  In this respect, 2012 has a lot in common with 1980 – and with 2004 – and with most of the presidential elections in the post-World War II era.

3:45 p.m. I’ve added a link to the Gallup data showing Carter leading Reagan during most of the post-Labor Day general election campaign until Reagan surges near the end.  Note that the race was quite tight for most of this period, according to Gallup.