literally not suprised at all
It wouldn’t have made any difference. Jimmy Carter, while a fine man, human being, and exceptional expresident, was a phenominally bad president. Ronald Reagan trounced him in a landslide that was over before I even go off work to vote. He only carried 6 states and DC, that was it.
Telling people that the general fealing of malise in society was somehow the fault of voters and just telling us to put on a sweater during the energy crisis, and other missteps to numerous to mention is what sunk him. And most importanatly, he was not a politician and didn’t understand how the game was played. Optimism was the needed message and he had none.
Great man who is now on his death bed but lets not rewrite history. He stunk as president and was never going to be anything but one term.
Could any other person have done any better? Especially with the opposing party backstabbing the country just to sabotage him? I don’t think it’s fair to say that he was a bad President, without saying how things could have been better.
This.
You don’t lose by this big of a margin based upon Republican dirty tricks.
Where were all the Democrats? They were voting for Reagan. They were refered to as Reagan Democrats. And it was much bigger movement than any sort of MAGA Trump voters. These new Democrats opened the door for Bill Clinton.
So let’s turn a blind eye to Republican treason because Carter would have lost anyway? That must be such a comfort to the hostages who spent more time in captivity because of Reagan.
…is there any new information in the linked article?
I actually met one of them. He lived on my paper route, and spoke at my high school. The story I remember was that the hostage-takers had written “down with Carter” on the wall of the bathroom he used, so he wrote “sit” in front of it. They’d keep erasing it, and he’d keep adding it back.
If the Republicans thought that it was a sure thing, they wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble illegally sabotaging Carter’s campaign. That is a hell of a lot of risk to take for something seemingly unnecessary.
In the summer of 1972, Nixon was leading McGovern in the polls by 53-37. That didn’t stop the Nixon campaign from Watergate. Sometimes you do things because you can, not because you need to.
The Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel probably did more to cement Iranian hatred for Jimmy Carter than anything else. It was like declaration of war for Iran. Jimmy not only lost the election, he set the Democratic Party back 20 years, at least. Until Clinton campaigned on renewed optimism.
Walter Mondale? He lost 49 states and only won his home state and DC. That’s Jimmy’s fault too.
This was extensively investigated by both House and Senate committees back when there was a Democratic majority in both houses, and they decided that evidence regarding the October surprise conspiracy theory was lacking. Here is the Wikipedia summary:
Someone popping up years, or decades, later with yet another unproven recollection doesn’t change the weight of evidence.
If the hostages had been released a week earlier, I wonder if Republicans would be the ones jumping to the conclusion that politicians from the other party controlled the timing whenever another long-after-the-event eyewitness pops up.
Said another way, exercising your impunity feels good. Often it doesn’t get any deeper than that.
“Republicans Sabotaged Carter’s Re-election via the Iran Hostage Crisis”
Next up, by using scientific instruments over decades, scientists have determined that the Pacific Ocean is a bit damp. We’re now looking into which particular religion The Pope might favor.
Isn’t there a ’ (I tried to put that in quotation marks and it just looks awful, so I won’t, hope it is still clear) missing? Asking as non native speaker, but I doubt he does not let history be rewritten.
And that thing with the Republicans working hand in hand with Iran, here, on the other side of the Atlantic, I thought it was admitted wisdom. Where is the news?
And you seem to really dislikepise Carter. Well, I, for one, do not. The world might be a better place if Reagan (and Thatcher) had lost their elections.
Sure, sure. And if my Grandmother had wheels, she’d have been a bike.
The Iran-Contra affair, and subsequent lying by Reagan should tell you what kind of man he was, and what kind of a party he led.
Occam’s Razor tells you all you need to know about what the Republicans did in the runup to the 1980 election.
And what’s wrong with wearing a sweater to save energy?
You know, if the Iranian hostage crisis was the cost of the camp David peace accords, it was probably worth it. If only we hadn’t been stuck with Reagan, who dismantled so much of our safety net.
They also obtained Carter’s debate prep materials in the run up to the election, which they gladly used against him.
I question the fairness of considering someone’s generally very bad character as evidence of guilt for a serious crime.
A probably less important point is that Reagan wasn’t always of bad character. Here are two examples:
From a 1984 presidential debate:
And from a 1987 speech:
A strange, and not quite correct, way to admit having lied? Yes, but he was a politician, and beyond that, his explanation of how normal people feel when they lie seems spot-on to me. Imagine Cruz, or DeSantis, let alone Trump, making, or letting their speech-writer make, such an admission.
Something is definitely being lost in translation because I have no idea what you are trying to say. And I don’t despise Carter, I don’t know where you are reading that in.