Ben Carson Is Following Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Playbook
th anger at Washington and career politicians at historic levels, a mild-mannered outsider starts catching momentum despite being viewed as a naive novice. His unsophisticated personality draws mockery from political insiders, but does little to dent his poll numbers. His appeal to evangelical voters gives him an inside track in the Iowa caucuses, even as it makes party leaders uncomfortable. His record is attacked as extreme, even within his own party. Yet he holds significant leads in early general-election polling against a well-known opponent from the other party.
This could be a story about Ben Carson’s seemingly long-shot bid for the presidency this year. But the same points could be made of Jimmy Carter’s out-of-nowhere presidential campaign in 1976—one that led to him becoming the 39th president of the United States. And to understand why Carson is performing so well in the Republican primary field despite his abject lack of governing experience, Carter’s presidential bid—and the national environment surrounding his candidacy—is an important start.
It can be presumptuous to compare elections, but the political environment of 1976 is about as close to a recent parallel as you can find to the one shaping today’s volatile campaign. Four decades ago, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, voters lost trust in Washington, and viewed those with political experience skeptically. The crowded Democratic field was filled with senators and congressmen (Mo Udall, Scoop Jackson, and Birch Bayh among them), none of whom connected with the public. Inflation was dragging down the economy, which had been stagnant for years. Terrorism was emerging as a popular tactic internationally. The incumbent party was tainted by scandal, and President Ford was damaged by association after pardoning Richard Nixon—while facing an insurgent challenge from Ronald Reagan. The country was clearly headed down the wrong track, in the minds of voters, and that manifested itself in that year’s election results.
Enter Carter, who was as unconventional of a Democratic candidate as it got back then. He was as much as an outsider within the Democratic party then as Carson is now. He won his lone campaign for governor of Georgia in 1970 by courting conservatives in a racially-charged campaign that attacked his Democratic opponent as an urban liberal. Carter’s presidential campaign showed surprising grassroots strength by focusing his efforts on the then-insignificant Iowa caucuses, finishing ahead of all the other candidates in the race. He was a quirky presidential candidate: During the race, Carter pledged to release every piece of government information about UFOs available to scientists—after filing a UFO report himself as governor. He sat down for an interview with Playboy, acknowledging that he “committed adultery in [his] heart many times.” That didn’t stop him from winning the presidency at a time when the public was embracing outsiders, scrambling the electoral map in surprising ways for a party that nominated George McGovern four years earlier. (That year, Carter nearly swept the South and carried Mississippi, Alabama and Texas—the last Democratic presidential nominee to win those deeply conservative states.) .........................................................more
http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/90225/ben-carson-is-following-jimmy-carters-presidential-playbook
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