WAGNER: The racist roots of Jimmy Carter’s electoral success

Former president Jimmy Carter recently passed away, and there were many tributes made to him. There seems to be a consensus that he was a very nice man and truly cared for the well-being of others.However, one aspect of his legacy that did not receive attention was that he won the Georgia gubernatorial election of 1970 by appealing to racist voters. That was only six years before he won the presidential election.Some people would say 1970 was a long time ago and there’s no use in dredging up such mud from the past. They may be right. It was long ago and perhaps best left as water under the bridge.But wait. If Carter had been a Republican, would his racist electioneering be forgiven and forgotten? Not a chance. It would have been mentioned over and over again.Donald Trump is frequently called a racist by leftists and the mainstream media. He wants to stop illegal immigration into the United States and deport millions that entered the country as a result of Joe Biden’s opening of the southern border. To some progressives, opposing an open border policy is racist.Trump is not a racist, of course. In fact, in 2024 he received a dramatically higher percentage of votes from racial minorities than any Republican presidential candidate of the last two generations. Some racist.But according to progressives, he must be labeled a racist based on distorted interpretations of his words and actions. He’s a Republican, after all.The same progressives don’t seem to talk about Jimmy Carter’s actual use of racist messaging to further his political career. He’s a Democrat and therefore gets a pass.Let’s see what they are willing to overlook.First of all, it’s important to understand that race was a huge issue in the southern states from the 1950s through the 1970s. There were state laws segregating African-Americans from whites in public schools, public transportation, public parks, etc. The U.S. federal government began taking measures to abolish this form of racial discrimination, but initially many southern whites continued to support segregation and would vote for politicians who upheld it.The leading segregationist politician of the time was George Wallace, the Democratic governor of Alabama from 1963 to 1967. Wallace ran as a third-party presidential candidate in 1968 and carried the electoral votes of five southern states.Wallace again ran for Alabama governor in 1970 on a racist-themed platform and won in a landslide with over 74 percent of the vote.In 1997, one of Carter’s close friends, Peter G. Bourne, wrote a biography entitled, Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography from Plains to Post-Presidency. Of course, it is very favourable towards Carter, but it’s not a whitewash.Jimmy Carter became a Georgia state senator in 1963. In 1966 he tried to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for governor but lost to Lester Maddox, a staunch segregationist.Carter tried again for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1970, and this time he won by appealing to segregationist voters. As Bourne puts it, to “the contention of some, including close supporters,” Carter “ran a campaign covertly appealing to racists.”By this time, George Wallace had won the 1970 Alabama Democratic primary and was running his winning election campaign. The Wallace victory was the backdrop to the Georgia governor’s race.Indeed, Carter’s campaign ran a TV commercial saying that Carter was “our kind of man.” As Bourne writes, “Use of the phrase ‘our kind of man’ was not by chance; it was the slogan that had described George Wallace in his gubernatorial campaign. It instantaneously linked Carter to Wallace.”Carter’s main opponent was Carl Sanders, a former Georgia governor who was considered a liberal. In his effort to attract segregationist voters, “Carter criticized Sanders for refusing to allow George Wallace to address the state legislature, and even for seeking to prevent him from addressing private groups.”Shortly before the Democratic primary, Carter “met with Roy Harris, the former chairman of Georgia’s White Citizens Council, the Georgia director of Wallace’s 1968 presidential campaign, and editor of the racist Augusta Courier.” Harris gave Carter his full support.Carter even bragged, “I can win this election without a single black vote.” Indeed, that wasn’t far from the result. In the Democratic primary, Carter only received 7 percent of the black vote while Sanders received 93 percent.Furthermore, during the campaign “Carter had frequently referred to himself as a ‘Dick Russell Democrat.’ Russell was a die-hard segregationist.”Carter beat Sanders in the Democratic primary and went on to win the governorship. Becoming Georgia governor was a crucial stepping stone to the presidency just six years later.The point is that Carter appealed for the support of racist voters to win in 1970. People on the left — as well as the mainstream media — seem to have ignored this fact because Carter was a Democrat and reached out to left-wing constituencies to support his presidency.If Carter had been a Republican, his 1970 campaign would be mentioned over and over again to justify allegations of racism.It seems, then, that accusations of racism are often a political tactic more than anything else. Candidates associated with actual racism can be whitewashed (so to speak) if they support leftist policies, while those innocent of such charges are repeatedly accused of it to harm their political chances. Thankfully, this didn’t work in the 2024 presidential election.

WAGNER: The racist roots of Jimmy Carter’s electoral success

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