The Carter-Obama Connection

Fri, May 30, 2008 at 9:25:41 am PDT

An Obama presidency would be a rerun of the disastrous Jimmy Carter years. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Even TIME Magazine notes the similarities: In Carter’s Shadow.

Of the two likely nominees this year, Obama is closest to Carter in background and policy leanings. The parallels between his campaign so far and the one Carter ran in 1976 are striking. Like Carter, Obama had little national experience when he started to run. Neither was given much chance of winning the nomination. Instead of running on a detailed platform, Carter told crowds that what Washington needed was “a government as good as its people”—just as Obama promises “change we can believe in.” Carter’s message sold well after Richard Nixon’s disgrace, and press accounts from the time suggest that people found the born-again Carter to be charismatic. That parallel is a promising one for Obama.