Carter's Divisive Politics
by Craig Shirley
Issue 142 - October 28, 2009

There he did it again.

Jimmy Carter, former Jim Crow man, has accused millions of his fellow Americans of engaging in the type of racial politics that marked his political career for years, even up to the eve of the 1980 presidential election and for which he has never apologized or acknowledged.

Branding his opponents as racists is nothing new for the old, self described “redneck.” In the fall of 1980, he and his minions unleashed one of the most vicious campaigns in recent American history against his opponent, Ronald Reagan.

The attacks were so unprecedented, Nancy Reagan did something herself which was unprecedented; she appeared in a television commercial taking it to President Carter over the slurs against “Ronnie.” Carter had shamefully accused his GOP opponent of wanting to divide American, “black from white, Christian from Jew…”

It was a curious and more importantly nasty and unfounded attack, as Reagan had a long history of fighting racism and anti-Semitism. As a young man playing football for Eureka College, several African-American members were barred from staying at a “whites only” hotel. While their coach tried to make some other accommodations, Reagan took his teammates to his home, where his parents kindly took them in.

In the 1940’s, Reagan quit a country club in Los Angeles in protest when he discovered it had a policy of barring Jewish members. As governor of California, Reagan appointed more blacks to positions in his administration, hundreds more than his so-called progressive predecessors, including Earl Warren and Pat Brown.

Meanwhile Carter, in the early sixties, supported legislation in the Georgia State Senate, which would have effectively eviscerated the Civil Rights Act, and would have prevented the desegregation of public schools there as well as open housing.

In 1966, during the contested gubernatorial election in Georgia, Carter had a choice as a State Senator. He could support the Republican, Bo Calloway. He could support the moderate Democrat, Ellis Arnall. Or he could stand with Lester Maddox, one of the repugnant leaders of segregation in the South. Carter chose the stand with Maddox, in order to protect his political future.

During the nasty 1970 Democratic primary for governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter’s campaign mass produced photos of his opponent, Carl Sanders, with the black members of the Atlanta Hawks. Sanders was the real progressive in the campaign.

Even as late as 1976, Carter, while campaigning in the South, praised Senators John Stennis and Jim Eastland, two longtime Southern Democrats who were supporters of “Massive Resistance,” the attempt by some whites in the South to oppose racial integration. For the record, Lyndon Johnson also supported Massive Resistance.

When reporters caught up with Stennis to ask him his position on racial desegregation he replied, “I’m against it. Always have been and always will be.”

Also that fall, Carter’s home church, the Plains Baptist Church, voted to ban blacks from joining. Carter did not quit in protest, knowing it would undermine his “Southern Strategy” in the election. Weakly, he said he would attempt to change the policy from the inside.

In 1976, Carter took all of the South, excepting Virginia, and the region constituted forty percent of his electoral total. He knew in 1976 and again in 1980 that to win, he needed to hold onto the states below the Mason-Dixon line.

If possible, it got worse in 1980. His campaign produced newspapers ads charging Reagan with wanting to win so he could stop Carter from appointing blacks to government. Fearful of losing urban black votes to the independent candidacy of John Anderson, his campaign ran false ads on African American radio stations claiming Anderson had voted against the Civil Rights Act.

Even liberal editorialists eviscerated Carter for his vindictive campaign and two Democratic opponents, Hubert Humphrey and Ted Kennedy had often complained over the years over Carter's nasty brand of politics. The great Hugh Sidey of Time Magazine wrote at the time, “The wrath that escapes Carter’s lips about racism and hatred when he prays and poses as the epitome of Christian charity leads even his supporters to protest his meanness.”

In Carter’s defense, his peanut business was once boycotted by the citizens of Plains in the 1960’s because he’d supported a local desegregation issue.

Carter is not a bigot. Sometimes he rose above his culture. Other times, he embraced it, especially when there was an election at stake.

The irony in Carter’s attack on the Tea Party protesters is that his 1976 campaign was based in part on attacking the elites of Washington, the lobbyists, the bankers, the inside traders. Precisely what has the Tea Party protesters up in arms today. Indeed, Carter wanted to reduce their power and influence and give Americans a government “as good” as they were.

If Carter was true to his revolutionary campaign of the bicentennial year, he’d be defending the Tea Party protesters, not smearing them. What’s got them upset is not racism, but elitism. Carter, in 1976, would have torn into tax cheats like Timmy Geithner and Kathleen Sebilius.

In his dotage, Carter should give his fellow citizens the benefit of the doubt, seeing they are lusting in their hearts not for racism or women, but for freedom and ethics in their government.

Craig Shirley is President and CEO of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs in Alexandria, VA. He is the author of the recently published book, "Rendezvous with Destiny" about Reagan’s 1980 campaign.

Post this article to your Facebook profile