By Ken Dalecki
"I'm Jimmy Carter and I'm running for President," the little-known ex-governor of Georgia announced in the crowded ballroom of the National Press Club on Dec. 12, 1974. I was among the journalists who heard Carter describe himself as “a farmer, an engineer, a businessman, a planner, a scientist, a governor and a Christian.”
The announcement wasn't a surprise: He'd already made it at the little railroad station in Plains, Ga., what would serve as his official campaign headquarters, and he would do it again later that day in New York City. His seemingly quixotic effort was something of a local story for me. The Thomson Newspaper chain for which I worked had a Washington bureau on the 11th floor of the National Press Building. Thomson owned six newspapers in Georgia, including The Cordele Dispatch just east of Plains. Carter would go on to narrowly win the presidency against a Watergate-hobbled President Gerald Ford.
Carter railroad station headquarters (Photo by Ken Dalecki)
My wife Alice and I had front-row seats in the press stands at the 39th President's inauguration on Jan. 20, 1977, the last inaugural to be held on the east portico of the Capitol. She was very pregnant and columnist Robert Novack had to make room for her to sit down. (She delivered our third child five days later.) Alice had a much closer encounter with Carter at the White House media Christmas party in December. After Jimmy and Rosalynn had the first dance in the East Room, Alice tapped his second partner on the shoulder and sailed across the dance floor with the President. I later took a few steps with the First Lady, apologizing for stepping on her toes. She was very gracious. According to the Washington Post, it was the first time, and probably last, that the first couple changed partners at the press party.
Carter had one thing in common with Trump in Trump's first term: Both were Washington outsiders. They had campaigned as such and paid a price for a lack of establishment support. Tension between House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill and Carter was palpable during many of O'Neill's press briefings I covered. Carter's top aides showed little deference to top Democrats on Capitol Hill, and the feeling was reciprocated. As his administration lost popularity, one Democrat House member from California I covered boldly proclaimed during Carter's re-election bid that "the President needs me more than I need him."
A unique touch Carter brought to his campaign was keeping a "promises book" in which aides listed stump-speech pledges, part of his vow to "never lie to the American people." A major issue in hotly contested Ohio in 1976 was whether to keep operating the nuclear enrichment plant near Portsmouth, Ohio. Ford waffled on whether to maintain the expensive and superfluous plant, but Carter unequivocally promised to keep it going to save jobs in hard-pressed southern Ohio. The pledge helped Carter win the state by a mere .27% of the vote. Thomson Newspapers owned six newspapers in Ohio, including the Portsmouth Star, so I kept close track of the enrichment plant's status. When Carter started to waiver on keeping it open, I reminded press secretary Jody Powell during a White House press conference of the promises book pledge. For whatever reason, the plant kept going until 2001.
Downtown Plains, Ga. (Photo by Ken Dalecki)
Football coach and sportscaster John Madden supposedly said, "it is better to be lucky than good." I've often thought of that phrase when thinking about the Carter presidency. Historians will debate how many of Carter's political woes were self-inflicted. By the end of his term, however, most Americans seemed to conclude that he was a well-meaning but ineffective leader.
Last year my wife and I made a detour on a drive north from Florida to visit Plains, Carter's beloved home. The railroad station in the eerily quiet little town still proclaimed its fame as his campaign headquarters. The drive out of Plains passed a modest house enclosed by a large black security fence where the former President and First Lady spent their last days.
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Ken Dalecki is an Executive Committee member in Legislative District 20. He can be reached at [email protected].