THE FOUR JIMMY CARTERS
Steinfels, Peter
THE FOUR JIMMY CARTERS PETER STEINFELS Jimmy carter the lay preacher; Jimmy Carter the modernizing engineer and Naval officer; Jimmy Carter the cautious and conventional businessman; Jimmy Carter...
...And so he was, but on closer inspection it became obvious he was no more vague, indeed possibly less, than most presidential candidates since that time when Nicholas Biddle advised the managers of William Henry Harrison, "Let him say not one single word about his principles, or his creed let him say nothing promise nothing...
...But now they are also questions of meaning: Are our institutions worthy of respect...
...Being aware of risks, however, often helps us to minimize them...
...This might be seen as the ultimate in anti-politics politics, a last-ditch appeal to the millions of voters who, like Groucho disdaining to join any club of which he was a member, feel that wanting to be President automatically disqualifies any one for the office...
...The Democratic party has achieved a remarkable unity by the simple stroke of choosing four men as its candidate for President...
...What then will become of Carter the lay preacher...
...Winthrop declared, with a special mission under God...
...At first the excuse for this expenditure of mental energy was that the man was purposely vague...
...All pulling in the same direction, this foursome of Carters should prove formidable when running against their opponent...
...And possibly to the likely next President...
...Although he has been seen and heard almost daily since the eariy primaries, defining him is a small but thriving cottage industry...
...They feel that the tradition of Winthrop passed down not to the New England mind of the Concord sages and later elites, but through the frontier evangelical creeds to such as the Kings, father and son...
...Is the creation of this nation still an open task, or are we now engaged in a holding action...
...The others are well known types to our cosmopolitantly provincial analysts...
...it was the absence of what usually reveals the politician behind the words a relevant record of deeds...
...The rhetoric of religion may become the crucial ingredient for cementing in place the post-industrial "socialism" of the rich which rationalizes and plans the society according to the standards of the experts and the elites rather than of the people...
...this is the one of the four Carters who has attracted the most attention...
...but apply Murphy's law instead whatever can go wrong, will and imagine the kind of "crises" a President Carter may confront: the inflation-unemployment trade-off proves intractable...
...In the long run, however, a great deal hangs on the outcome...
...Let the use of pen and ink be wholly forbidden...
...Is America in truth a City on a Hill, as John (Continued on page 543) Steinfels (font...
...Circumstances will force this role upon him...
...Ex pluribus unum and probably victory too...
...His choices will be (1) to do nothing, (2) to move leftward beyond the conventional liberalism of his current advisors...
...but it will not be unduly bothered with justice, mercy, and humility...
...In relation to the choice in November, this may not make much difference...
...the world economy deteriorates further...
...Nixon, however, was available to be kicked around for three decades...
...The chances are that the GOP strategy will not succeed...
...declared him in the moving conclusion of the New York convention, seems especially chosen and especially willing to play the part...
...If we do not yet know which of the Carters will predominate, it should be recalled that Carter himself may not know either...
...Pushed from sight by the immediate demands and national mobilization of the Cold War, these questions burst forth in the Sixties still with no resolution...
...The Republicans, sly devils, are countering by coming as close as humanly possible, within the legal rules of the game, to nominating no one at all...
...Jimmy Carter the activist and ambitious politician...
...but here is the "bird of strange and exotic plumage," Rovere described...
...They were posed, to begin with, by the Depression and World War II-decade and a half which radically altered the organization and the self-understanding of the country...
...The President has always been a spiritual leader, but Carter, sent by the Lord, as Martin Luther King, Sr...
...with a sharing of conditions of joy, labor, and sorrow...
...The second alternative, with its emphasis on greater equality and wider participation, will appeal to both Carter the preacher and Carter the activist...
...with brotherly affection and the sacrifice of superfluities for the wants of others...
...There are no gains without risks, and Carter is the risk I am willing to take at the moment...
...Let no Committee, no convention no town meeting ever extract from him a single word about what he thinks or will do hereafter...
...As a one-term governor of Georgia, he simply did not face most of the issues which are the test of a President...
...The questions remain...
...Have democracy and equality reached their outer limits...
...that the Carter quadruplets will be able to evince a certain amount of superficial evidence that the Republican candidate actually exists...
...No, the problem with Carter was not the vagueness of his words...
...The danger is that the lay preacher may hire out to the others...
...The City on a Hill would be perhaps : orderly, well-financed and well-patrolled...
...Thus the quartet of Carters...
...the prospect of default again looms for major cities and states...
...A boon to political analysts and theoreticians," Richard Rovere called Carter in The New Yorker after the Democratic convention: "Because he is a bird of strange and exotic plumage, he has provided them with steady and challenging work, inspecting him and his record, performing exegetical labors on his speeches and other writings, trying to determine his species and find or invent categories in which he can be placed...
...3) to move rightward toward the activist conversatism of the corporative elite...
...Or, to push my quadruple image over the brink four-warned is forearmed...
...the Middle East demands a new commitment overseas...
...This is Carter the lay preacher, who talks of goodness, God, and love...
...I doubt that he will be left behind...
...For years pundits analyzed the "real Nixon," in contrast to any number of false ones, and hailed "new Nixons," succeeding to a parade of old ones...
...Commonweal welcomes letters on subjects treated in its pages...
...The difference between Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford is the difference between preferring the total abolition of the presidency to its mere hibernation...
...Of course all political figures are susceptible to description in terms of multiples...
...But the American people appear to be forcing it as well...
...and our authorities, of obedience...
...The reaction has been one of puzzlement and suspicion on the part of many fear of the unknown at the same time as it has been one of recognition and hope on the part of others...
...After the election, they may prove more difficult, when they begin running against themselves...
...I prefer any one of the Carters to either of the Republican alternatives...
...It is at this point that the problem of the four Carters becomes acute...
...But Watergate broke up the ice on that pond...
...Luck may hold and the times may be easy...
...The reason is simply that major questions about the economic and cultural character of our society hang on the verge of resolution...
...A hundred more Carter speeches and there will be a hundred more Carter speeches will never quite bridge this gap, will never quite resolve the corresponding uncertainty...
...For a moment it looked like things were settling into place with the victory of Nixon the "cooling of America," Time called it...
...Letters of not more than 250 or 300 words naturally have a better chance of being published...
...In responding to the immediate problems of the next years, a President Carter will be providing answers, perhaps even definitive ones, to those questions...
...But the third possibility, with its promise of efficiency and stability, may well appeal to Carter the modernizer and Carter the businessman as well as to Carter the activist...
...It was the insufficiency of words altogether...
...and that thus enjoying a four-to-one numerical advantage, they will sweep to triumph in November...
...About Walter Mondale (or, for that matter, Gerald Ford), we can reach a relatively certain judgment, not because he has announced his sentiments clearly and well, which he has, but because he has been compelled to vote them...
...The first of these choices will cut against his own temperament and his shrewd understanding of the national character...
...For sheer concentration of such effort, what might be termed MPW or musings-per-week, the Carter case is truly exceptional...
...What claims upon society, and what sacrifices by citizens, are justly called for...
...The covenant with an exacting God would be transmuted into a contract with a contented City Manager...
...They are practical questions, to be sure about unemployment, inflation, racial equality, foreign policy, world trade...
...It would be the ultimate confounding of the legacy of Winthrop with the legacy of the Robber Barons...
Vol. 103 • August 1976 • No. 17
