Today in POTUStory - "CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE"

The speech was ahead of its time. The speech is remembered as the "malaise" even though the word never appeared or used by President Jimmy Carter.

Today in POTUStory - AHEAD OF THE TIMES

The audio sucks!

Pointless Presidential Pfacts #39 - "Single Democratic President"

Jimmy Carter was a lone Democrat for some time, in terms of having ever met a POTUS from his political party. President Carter served from January 20, 1977 until January 20, 1981. By the time he runs for national office, former Vice President Hubert Humphrey is the only living Democrat elected to national office, although that office is the vice presidency.

The 39th POTUS. Georgia. Democratic. 1977-1981.

Born in 1924 the year of Calvin Coolidge's reelection to the office he'd held since Warren Harding's death in 1923. but the first Democratic president in young Carter's life was Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. By the time he entered State politics in the early 1960s first with the Georgia Senate from 1963-1967, presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

Former President Jimmy Carter as seen on the AMERICAN DAD! episode "Black Mystery Month".

By the time he was elected the 76th Governor of Georgia and served from 1971-1975, a Republican had returned to the White House, Richard Nixon. Two of the three living former presidents to Nixon died in his first term, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry Truman. The third died two days into Nixon's second term and three weeks after Truman's death. So, Governor Carter never met former Democratic presidents Truman and Johnson 37. So when former governor Carter ran for the Democratic nomination there was no former president on the Democratic side in 1976, just presidential losers like Vice President Humphrey, serving with Johnson 37 from 1965-1969, in the 1968 election and George McGovern in 1972. Carter would win the '76 election against the incumbent and first appointed POTUS Gerald Ford, the 38th president, in a super-close election.

Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas and President Jimmy Carter at a 1980 campaign stop in Texarkana, Texas. What President Carter doesn't know is that he's just shook hands with the Democrat to be elected president of the United States.

President Carter served just one term. His vice president, Walter Mondale, would run four years later against President Ronald Reagan, the man who defeated Carter's reelection bid. Eight years after leaving the White House because the voters said so, Carter saw another Democratic candidate, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, defeated by the incumbent VPOTUS, George Bush. Once William Jefferson Clinton defeated Bush 41 in 1992 and he was sworn-in at noon on January 20, 1993, Carter, in attendance of the first Clinton Inauguration, finally met another Democratic president.

William Jefferson Clinton being sworn-in on January 20, 1993, the day President Carter met another Democratic POTUS.

Perspective President

Ronald Reagan was the first president I remember and associating with what a president should look like. Jimmy Carter was the President of the United States when I was born in 1978, so the 1980s was my childhood and Reagan defined the United States from 1981-1989, from a political-cultural level. Carter will always be a favorite president of mine because of the association but also because he only had the best interests at heart. He would be maligned, from within his own party in 1980 and of course the Republican Party. The GOP successfully lowered Carter's patriotism and increased Reagan's stature. But Reagan had the best interests of the nation at heart as well. He always showed the good of the United States while Carter told us the truth which was bad news. Either way, the idea of perspective shapes one's own view of a political figure and Reagan is a great example of a perspective president...as is Carter.

As for me, I only knew Reagan as a president. As I learned his history, governor of California was next on the list and so I still only saw him as a politician. Reagan was a lifeguard at one point in his life. Those kids that grew up around him as swimmers under his watch, they would always see Reagan as a lifeguard. Probably whenever those former recreational swimmers saw a Reagan film, or as they might call it a picture, they saw him as that lifeguard guy in pictures. So when an actor-Reagan started showing a prospective political future, the movie going audiences as voters questioned "can a movie actor be a politician?" The swimmers were probably thinking "can a lifeguard be a politician?"

I'm sure those that only knew their State governor was Ronald Reagan and not some actor, would think "yeah, he can be president...he's the governor." So says a young Californian from between 1967-1975.

This of course goes without those above people not looking at the individuals political ideology, what they believe and have they put that into practice.