Carter sees tea party parallels to his 1976 run!

[thewiseguy]

ATLANTA – Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday he sees parallels between today's tea party and his own campaign for the White House in 1976. But he doesn't think the movement will be much of a factor beyond this fall's elections.

The Georgia Democrat told The Associated Press he rode a wave of voter discontent to the presidency on the heels of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal that felled President Richard Nixon, much like tea party conservatives are now earning support by voicing anger at the nation's economic woes.

"I was a candidate that was in some ways like the tea party candidate," Carter said in an interview. "I was a complete outsider. I capitalized legitimately on the dissatisfaction that was permeating our society."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100920/ap_on_re_us/us_jimmy_carter_diary_2

[David__77]

1. He is somewhat right.

He was not a liberal/progressive candidate, many do not realize now. Ford was only marginally to his right on most things, and on others was if anything to his left. He was a southern populist with a thin program.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I supported Mo Udall in'76.

Carter in the General, of course.

[madinmaryland]

3. The Democrats could have run just about anyone that year and they would have won.

Even Ted Kennedy might have won.

Hmmm. Kind of resembles the election in 2008.

[Jim Sagle]

4. Amazing how a half-Dem, half-Pug political morphodite got elected that year.

Luckily it never happened again. ;)

[madinmaryland]

6. Well what is fucked up is that since the 1960's there has

been NO democrat that has been able to pass anything that is actually progressive. They have passed legislation that has temporarily slowed down the vast right wing swing, but that is about it.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. He may not have been an openly liberal candidate

But he was the most liberal president we've had in the last 40 years.

For example:
He supported the ERA, and his wife openly campaigned for it.

He passed the most comprehensive energy policy ever in the US, which could have put us in a much more desirable energy situation today if his idiot successor had not gutted it.

He tried to get Americans to be more environmentally responsible, and he tried to lead by example (walking during his Inauguration, turning down the thermostats in the White House, installing solar panels, etc).

He set aside vast tracts of public lands so that Ronald Reagan and his gang of sagebrush despoilers wouldn't get their grubby hands on them.

While his foreign policy wasn't perfect, thanks in large part to Zbigniew Brzezinski, he did try to promote human rights as a centerpiece of this policy, and he eventually won the Noble Peace Prize for his efforts to achieve peace between Egypt and Israel.