http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980
I’d probably voted for John Anderson considering Carter was both ineffective as President and going to lose anyways while Reagan obviously was unacceptable as a New Right Presidential candidate.
First election which I can report my actual vote: John Anderson.
My first presidential vote was for Reagan, as Carter had just made me register for the draft.
This was my first presidential election, and I voted for Anderson, for exactly the reasons the OP listed.
As I did in real life with no regrets, the most underrated president in history, James Earl Carter.
I was too young to vote at the time but if I wasn’t, I would’ve voted for Anderson. I think Carter’s a nice guy and I agreed with him much of time politically but he was just too ineffectual. Also, I’m still a bit ticked off about his conceding before the polls on the west coast had closed and turning more than a few races over to the Republicans. From the perspective of 2014, however, I would’ve voted for Carter mainly because Anderson didn’t stand a chance and he would’ve at least slowed efforts at turning the US rightward.
I agree with all this except I would never have voted for Anderson. He had no chance to win, and it was more important to stop Reagan. I was also too young to vote at the time, although I was in a tiny Reelect Carter club at my generally-conservative prep school, along with a Jewish kid and a black girl.
For all his flaws, gimme Jimmy!
Carter! Anything to stop Reagan!
:rolleyes:
Which means you don’t know what it was like to be an adult in 1980.
Not only was unemployment staggeringly high, both inflation and interest rates were double digits. So any money you had today was worth less tomorrow. And even if you did have a job or some money, try buying a car or a house at 18%. When it comes to High inflation & high interest rates Americans have been fat, drunk, and stupid about it. The last 30+ years have been glorious in that category.
And there wasn’t the safety nets for people who got laid off from their jobs like there were during this recession. There was no 2 years of unemployment benefits, unemployment benefits were less (even adjusted for the time) and there were no tax credits for COBRA health insurance coverage.
It was an awful time and it’s easy for junior to say he’d vote for Carter when he doesn’t have a clue to the misery that it was.
But, how much of that was actually Carter’s fault?
“When you’re in charge, everything is your fault!”
Carter inherited a faltering economy and made it worse. His stale ideas and inept leadership made for complete disaster if 4 more years had been added. His own party controlled Congress and even they bucked him.
I find it almost humorous that folks who weren’t there or are too young to know sing Carters praises. Being a good man and meaning well is meaningless to someone in who can’t find a job to save their life, or had their savings become worthless thanks to out of control inflation. I’ll take a cold hearted prick who knows what they’re doing over that any day of the week.
What “stale ideas”?
Domestic policies here.
I wouldn’t have voted for him, but Reagan did have a good joke that year: “A downturn is when your neighbor loses his job; a recession is when you lose yours; a recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”
Agreed. And that is rare for us. 
But it is a question that needs asked. Too often in debate, we pick out a year, say, 1987, decide that the economy was good because we had a good job and ask ourselves, “Who was President then?” Oh Reagan, well he must have been a good President? (Or we could say that about 1999, or for the opposite reasons 1980)
But the economy is much more complex than the one executive at the top. I think it is incumbent upon anyone who would blame or praise the President at a specific time to point to what he did that the poster believes caused the situation.
I don’t know about 1980 because I was 4 years old. I just know that as a kid, Reagan made me feel like how an American should feel: proud, confident, and strong. No other President has come close to that. But when I look at videos of Carter, he seems to be the antithesis of that. He almost lectures everyone that its their own fault that things are bad. I’ve disagreed politically with Clinton and Obama in my lifetime, but at least they give you a sense of leadership. By watching the videos, Carter makes you feel like your grandfather lecturing you for eating the last cookie without permission. I can’t see how I would have voted for the guy.
But, when you think about it, all other things being equal (which they never are, of course), the scolder should make a better POTUS than the cheerleader.
Carter appointed Volker actually got inflation reduced but at the cost of growth, and it was very late in his term, but it shows that there is a certain amount of control of the economy to be had. Trouble is that the price is not one we like to pay, especially in this day and age.
Reagan kept Volker and took things a step further by inducing a recession. That got inflation under control but Reagan was not popular for it. Reagan was fortunate in that the economy got rolling again before 1984 (his approval rating was pretty bad in early 1983) and he had Grenada to help out.
Carter had a string of bad events that made people look for something else: Iranian revolution, hostage crisis, failed hostage rescue mission, and he made more than a few of his own mistakes (and then there was Ted Kennedy…)
Wasn’t the Community Reinvestment Act blamed for the housing bubble?
I might have liked to vote for Angela Davis were she at the top of her ticket… but I never liked Gus Hall. Sorry, Angela.
So in real life I voted for Carter—1980 was the first year I was old enough to vote for president—and I’m repeating that here. Reagan, ugh, ruined this country. We’re still trying to shake off the hangover from the 1980s. I can’t not like Jimmy Carter. He may not have been the best president ever, but out all 44 of them all he’s the best human being.
Carter ends up looking better in hindsight than he did in 1980, but not enough to be superior to Reagan. I think it shows just how far out of the mainstream this board’s political views are when MOndale and Carter beat Reagan in a landslide.