Yesterday the news arrived that Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, died at his home in Plains, Georgia at the age of 100 years and a few months. It reminded me immediately that my mother died eight years ago at the same age of 100 years and a few months. I liken their two lives for a great many reasons. Both were born in rural communities to parents who owned farmland and conducted business on the local roads from small stores. The Carters had a general store at the edge of their farm where my grandfather had a roadhouse and gas station on the edge of his. The town of Archery, Georgia had 600 souls at the time of Carter’s birth and the town of Lansing, New York had about 1,000 at the same time. Neither were important or garden spot communities, but they were both firmly rooted in Americana. Archery was dominantly black and Lansing was dominantly immigrant (Czech, Slovak, Armenian and Greek). They were both communities of working men and women and both valued education enough to send some of their local school graduates off to nearby colleges. Both Jimmy and my mother played high school basketball. Carter went to Georgia Institute of Technology (eventually transferring to the U.S. Naval Academy) while my mother went to Cornell University. She spent the war years working for the New York State Welfare Department while Jimmy was in the Naval Academy. After the war she went on the adventurous mission of working for the Rockefeller Foundation in Venezuela, driving jeeps into the hills to bring improved living standards to indigenous women and children. Jimmy went into the “Silent Service” on nuclear submarines, helping to maintain a peaceful world as it transitioned from the aggressions of WWII. Other than a brief stint as a farmer, Jimmy spent the rest of his working life in service to his country as a state senator, Governor of Georgia and then President of the United States. My mother, other than a short stint running an art gallery in Pacific Palisades worked in international development, in service to the world’s disadvantaged women and children, culminating her career as a UN Diplomat who served as a Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Jimmy Carter worked for peace and humanity in various ways for the rest of his life. Both were examples for us all.
I came of voting age in 1972 and therefore my first election was about voting against Richard Nixon and for George McGovern. Being a college sophomore when I cast my vote, it is not surprising that I leaned towards the liberal side, the anti-war side, the side that traipsing behind my mother in all the difficult and challenging parts of the world would logically train me to care about more than Republicans could care about anything…except cutting taxes. But by 1976 I had my MBA in finance and had transitioned from studying development economics and third world government as an undergraduate to learning about the capital asset pricing model as a graduate student. I had watched Gerald Ford stumble his way through the truncated Nixon second term and try to whip inflations now (WIN) as the petrodollar oil shock put us all in long lines at the gas station (assuming it was your odd/even day to even be able to get gas!) If Republicans were unscrupulous like Nixon or inept like Ford, I was going to vote the other way. I therefore voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976 right after starting in banking and just before getting married and buying my first house. In other words, I had life priorities on my mind rather than politics, but Carter seemed like a decent sort so he got my vote. The first four years of my career were whirlwind years where I was suddenly able to connect the vagueness of politics to the reality of everyday economics, which dominated my workday conversations with clients colleagues and just about everyone. What I saw in Carter was a guy who had high ideals and was trustworthy, who wanted to do the right thing for all Americans. He somehow thought he could do that with hard work and earnestness and even to a neophyte like me, it was clear that he didn’t have the Washington political chops to get as much done as he wanted to.
By the time he was up for reelection, the practicalities of life had swung the nation towards the right and there was Ronald Reagan, the cowboy movie star, ex-Governor of California telling us that what we needed was less government and less regulation and taxes. I’m not sure I was singing that tune, but I know I like this guy George H.W. Bush who seemed well versed In Washington and leadership and had been a fighter pilot in the war. He seemed to have equivalent ethical standards as Carter and more political savvy, but Reagan had too much popular momentum and Bush had to take a backseat to him. I voted against Carter and for Reagan on the theory that being a good hard-working man was not enough and we needed something new (Voodoo economics, as Bush called Reagan’s supply side theories, notwithstanding). For eight years I watched supply side trickle down economics do almost no trickling down and leaving the economy overheated and debt ridden due to tax cuts. I also saw Carter spend his time working for the betterment of humanity in one endeavor after another. My admiration for Carter rose year after year as my admiration for Reagan and Bush waned. By 1992 I was convinced that Republican politics was not what it was touted to be and that Carter was every bit the folk hero of the people that we had all hoped in 1976 that he would be.
From 1992 onward I have yet to find a Republican presidential candidate who I thought was worth a damn and while some of the Democratic candidates either fell short during their campaigns or in their actual terms of office (Clinton and Obama), they were, in my continuing view, a damn sight more responsible and for the people than their respective Republican counterparts. But for all that time, it has been Jimmy Carter who has stood as the beacon of righteousness and selflessness as he has quietly gone about his long life doing good for the world, much as I feel my mother did. Make no mistake, he even told us directly that he too was human and even “lusted in his heart”, but that humanity never overwhelmed his actions or even slightly blemished his ethical standing. Until the day he died this past weekend, Jimmy Carter was the paragon of goodness that we wish all of our leaders embodied. It is hard to say that he represents a standard we should expect from all our leaders because that might be setting the bar too high. What I believe Carter represents is the ideal that we should use to measure other political leaders. The pendulum swings back and forth on this as well as all issues of leadership, but I hope that we can return to a day when all political leaders at least try to be as solid and selfless as Jimmy Carter.
We knew you, Jimmy when we were wandering in the wilderness of the 1970’s, and while we forgot you in 1980, you reminded us over and over again why we were so lucky to have you for the time that we did. Rest well in eternity and be sure to say hello to my mother as you go.