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Former President Jimmy Carter Did Not Vote in the Upcoming Election
Come on, who are we kidding?
When I was in graduate school earning my master’s degree in political science in the early 1990s, one of my favorite topics was the Carter administration.
I grew up in the ’70s and that era was a shiny, happy memory for me — the reign of disco and feathered hair. America celebrated its Bicentennial in 1976, which turned into a year-long national party. The oil crisis didn’t faze me since I couldn’t drive.
Jimmy Carter was elected as the 39th president of the United States in 1977. He was a Navy veteran from Georgia who took over his family’s seed and farm supply business upon his father’s death in the 1950s. He campaigned as a “peanut farmer”, which appealed to his blue-collar base in the Democratic party.
But this was a guy who did graduate work at Union College in reactor technology and nuclear physics and served aboard a nuclear submarine. Maybe he liked to walk around the Georgia fields for exercise, but “farming” is probably a stretch.
Jimmy Carter had a goofus, alcoholic younger brother named Billy, who knew an opportunity when he saw one. Fortunately, without the questionable “benefit” of the internet, he could only do so much damage to his older, smarter brother’s career…
