Carter-era appeal won't work today

In their column "Hold on, GOP" , David E. Johnson and Holly Robichaud wrote, "America remains a right-of-center-nation." They did not quote any recent public opinion surveys to substantiate this assertion.

[Joe]

Jimmy Carter was a failed president!

Senator Obama. has surrounded himself with many of the same non-thinkers associated with the Carter administration. The senator claims to expouse change?

President Carter's Administration:

Foreign policy gave the USA an Iran hostage crisis.
Spending policies gave us Stagflation.
Energy policy gave us sweaters and gas lines.
Airline deregulation was also Carter's brilliant idea.
A prevailing attitude of gloom because Mr.Carter could not see the forest for the trees.
The list is endless.

[Tommy]

Neither party has produced a quality candidate. America needs a statesman not another hack.

[Mike Calo]

Tommy wrote:

Neither party has produced a quality candidate. America needs a statesman not another hack.

Then we're doomed; the United States hasn't had a statesman since the Founding Fathers.

[stevenb]

Joe wrote:

Jimmy Carter was a failed president!
Senator Obama. has surrounded himself with many of the same non-thinkers associated with the Carter administration. The senator claims to expouse change?
President Carter's Administration:
Foreign policy gave the USA an Iran hostage crisis.
Spending policies gave us Stagflation.
Energy policy gave us sweaters and gas lines.
Airline deregulation was also Carter's brilliant idea.
A prevailing attitude of gloom because Mr.Carter could not see the forest for the trees.
The list is endless.

==========

What a pile of dung.

The Iranian hostage crisis was put in motion decades before Carter became president. The Iranians didn't just jump up one day and decide to get angry at the United States for no reason.

Spending policies? Please. Aggregate federal debt for all four of Carter's years:$224 billion (with a single year high of $75 billion). Federal deficit for just one year under Reagan (1984):$208 billion. With bigger annual deficits to come. Reagan's "spending" policies were to spend -- and lie in order to deceive the American people. Don't believe? Read Donald T. Regan's book. He was Reagan's chief of staff. Look particularly at how Reagan made the $208 billion deficit look like only $158 billion. Hell, I could go on about this but "deaf ears" I'm sure...

Gas lines? You, um, don't remember the first gas lines of the seventies? I do. That was 1973-1974. Let's see, who was in the White House? Oh, that was Nixon... oh, wait... he quit for some reason and left Ford in charge of the gas lines. Neither of them, by the way, did anything at all about gas lines. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Null and void.

Airline deregulation? Gee, I thought all those Reagan-Nixon-Bush boosters would have loved letting the market sort things out...

A "prevailing attitude of gloom"? We're not feeling any gloom now are we? No way. Thousands dead in an apparently interminable war to find non-existing weapons of mass destruction. I'm sure they'll turn up any day now. And it turns out, get this, the war in Iraq is going to cost a lot more noney than the $60 billion pricetag original shown five years ago. Probably at least 10 times that amount. The federal debt now:$9 trillion(!). We're shipping jobs out of the country as fast as we can. Four dollar a gallon gas.(But no gas lines!) We're sending $2 billion a day out of the country by way of our trade imbalance (even we won't buy the sh#t we make). But there's good news too: corporate executives are making astounding amounts of money. There's a reality show on television for almost every taste. And you can have as loud an exhaust system as you like on your car or motorcycle.

Just about the time you start thinking there's no diff between Democrats and Republicans someone posts an idiotic item like this and you remember all over again: Dems lie. But the Republicans seem to take real pride in it. Perhaps because they feel it's a dying art. Also, it's the only way they can get elected. Plus, it represents the fundamental core of their religious afflictions.

[Joe]

stevnb, last time we conversed you were a MORON with brain rot, you still are!

[stevenb]

Joe wrote:

stevnb, last time we conversed you were a MORON with brain rot, you still are!

==========

We have never communicated.

[stevenb]

Joe wrote:

stevnb, last time we conversed you were a MORON with brain rot, you still are!

==========

And you're still unable to formulate a cogent, fact-based response I see.

Careful readers might notice one factual error in my original posting: we did find those weapons of mass destruction. They're called George W. Bush and **** Cheney.

[Ironman Carmichael]

"Prevailing attitude of gloom" in the late 70s? Those years were a party compared to this miserable decade.

[willig]

stevenb wrote:

<quoted text>
==========
What a pile of dung.
The Iranian hostage crisis was put in motion decades before Carter became president. The Iranians didn't just jump up one day and decide to get angry at the United States for no reason.
Spending policies? Please. Aggregate federal debt for all four of Carter's years:$224 billion (with a single year high of $75 billion). Federal deficit for just one year under Reagan (1984):$208 billion. With bigger annual deficits to come. Reagan's "spending" policies were to spend -- and lie in order to deceive the American people. Don't believe? Read Donald T. Regan's book. He was Reagan's chief of staff. Look particularly at how Reagan made the $208 billion deficit look like only $158 billion. Hell, I could go on about this but "deaf ears" I'm sure...
Gas lines? You, um, don't remember the first gas lines of the seventies? I do. That was 1973-1974. Let's see, who was in the White House? Oh, that was Nixon... oh, wait... he quit for some reason and left Ford in charge of the gas lines. Neither of them, by the way, did anything at all about gas lines. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Null and void.
Airline deregulation? Gee, I thought all those Reagan-Nixon-Bush boosters would have loved letting the market sort things out...
A "prevailing attitude of gloom"? We're not feeling any gloom now are we? No way. Thousands dead in an apparently interminable war to find non-existing weapons of mass destruction. I'm sure they'll turn up any day now. And it turns out, get this, the war in Iraq is going to cost a lot more noney than the $60 billion pricetag original shown five years ago. Probably at least 10 times that amount. The federal debt now:$9 trillion(!). We're shipping jobs out of the country as fast as we can. Four dollar a gallon gas.(But no gas lines!) We're sending $2 billion a day out of the country by way of our trade imbalance (even we won't buy the sh#t we make). But there's good news too: corporate executives are making astounding amounts of money. There's a reality show on television for almost every taste. And you can have as loud an exhaust system as you like on your car or motorcycle.
Just about the time you start thinking there's no diff between Democrats and Republicans someone posts an idiotic item like this and you remember all over again: Dems lie. But the Republicans seem to take real pride in it. Perhaps because they feel it's a dying art. Also, it's the only way they can get elected. Plus, it represents the fundamental core of their religious afflictions.

Jimmy Carter was such a wonderful president, why was he defeated in a bid for a second term? He is still bitter!

[willig]

Joe wrote:

stevnb, last time we conversed you were a MORON with brain rot, you still are!

Joe, yolu sound like a real lame brain. Stick a sock in your math if you have one big enough.

[denny olver]

bingo

[stevenb]

willig wrote:

<quoted text>Jimmy Carter was such a wonderful president, why was he defeated in a bid for a second term? He is still bitter!

==========

Because Ronald Reagan, aside from being dumb as a stump, was, nonetheless, a spectacular actor by Washington DC standards. He gave his best, "aw shucks" performance and people bought it.

Also, to be fair, in political terms a 51-41 victory (51% to 41%) is a big win for Reagan. But in real terms, think of 92 people in a room where 51 believe one thing and 41 believe something else. It's not as sweeping a situation as it seems when it's put in political terms.

But mostly, Reagan just lied his **** off a lot better than Carter. And, considering his oncoming mental disease, probably didn't even know he was doing it...

[ZEUS]

willig wrote:

<quoted text>Joe, yolu sound like a real lame brain. Stick a sock in your math if you have one big enough.

At least Joe does not talk out of both sides of his mouth, like you do!

[Ken Leary]

Stevenb You are right about a lot of things existing before Mr. Carter became President. However, You seem to have overlooked a couple of His goofs. He said publicly after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan :they fooled Me" Pretty dangerous words for the Leader of the Free World to utter. Secondly, what in H*** was He thinking in signing away a strategic choke point like the Panama Canal? I think He was a decent and honorable Man but Presidential material? Hardly.

[stevenb]

I wasn't really promoting Carter as a spectacular president. Like many (most?), he presided at a difficult time.

The comparison to his successor was, I think, particularly reasonble.After some thought it occurred to me that a simpler way to put it would have been: Carter told people what they needed to hear. Reagan told people what they wanted to hear.

One example was the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standard for automobiles. Carter pushed it through Congress:

1978: 19mpg
1979: 20mpg
1980: 21.5mpg
1981: 23mpg
1982: 24.5mpg
1983: 26mpg
1884: 27.5mpg

That would be a weighted average miles per gallon that each auto manufacturer selling in the U.S. had to meet. If a car company sold a big gas-guzzler it had to sell a smaller one to keep their average up.

One of the things that the Reagan admin did early on was to go to Congress and try to convince them to ditch the last two years of that standard. In other words, to stop at a fleet average of 24mpg rather than continue on to 27.5mpg. I don't know whether the Reagan admin was successful but I'm pretty sure my memory is correct on this.

And I also seem to recall that Carter took a hit for biting the bullet on the social security system by acknowedging early on that a bump in the SS tax was necessary. NOT something people wanted to hear. He could have done the politically astute thing and simply ignored what was happening. You know, just figure, hey, it won't be on MY watch so screw it.

But, of course, you are also correct in what you have pointed out. He certainly takes serious hits for those things.

[Ken Leary]

Fair enough.

[Les Moore]

Mike Calo wrote:

<quoted text>
Then we're doomed; the United States hasn't had a statesman since the Founding Fathers.

I think a number of historians would disagree with you.

[Andrew]

Carter was the President that got the poisoned chalice. Like all the other world leaders of the late seventies, he inherited numerous problems beyond his control (unfortunately despite liking to portray themselves as laissez faire, you Americans expect a lot more impossible things from your leaders). Look at what he had to contend with:

1) An Iranian Revolution. He was the President when it all kicked off and, an often forgotten fact, he was the one who got the Iranian hostages out (Reagan sent him to greet them personally on their release).

If you blame Carter for Iran, quite frankly you'd have to blame Bush personally for 9/11!

2) An Oil Crisis

He developed a plan which would have placed us in a much better situation than we are today. Unfortunately you Yanks preferred importing foreign oil and living a lie of infinite resources for the last 30 years, building up to a more serious peak oil situation that we now face.

Jimmy Carter was the representative of responsible future building. His only mistake in this regard is that he made the political mistake of planning for the long term - the short term was always going to be hard unless you wanted to commit hedonistic suicide.

3) World inflation. One country, not even the USA, can control increasing prices when foreign food and oil is rocketing in price. Can it?

4) Dealing with the Soviets. Carter also had to deal with Europe, who he frequently considered a weak handicap to taking a firm line. Carter would have liked a Europe full of Margaret Thatchers in defence terms, rather than Helmut Schmidts.