If you squint, you can see it. An imperial presidency that ends with disgrace and a president whose approval ratings are in the 20s. An oil crisis in which US dependence on imported oil has crippled our economy and exposed weaknesses in our national security. Rising unemployment. Uncertainty in the banking system. Housing starts at record lows. A dollar that's declined to the point where it's trading 1:1 with the Canadian dollar. White House staffers named Cheney and Rumsfeld. And an experienced Washington insider with war hero credentials facing an outsider running on hope and a smile.
Can you see it?
Of course, there were major differences between 1976 and 2008. Even as Richard Nixon was winning reelection in 1972, his coattails had already become nonexistent, with Democrats making gains in Congress. In 1974, with the new word "Watergate" front and center in American politics, Democrats surged to a 291-144 edge in the House and a 61-38 lead in the Senate. It might have seemed that the presidential election of 1976 would be a walkover. It wasn't.
Gerald Ford might have been placed in office by the ousted Nixon, but Ford was still regarded as someone who wasn't part of Tricky Dick's inner circle and as being among those who helped to end Nixon's presidency. His twenty-four years in the House had given Ford a network of connections and supporters, and he was viewed by the public as experienced and moderate. In a country that suddenly felt very unsure of itself, Ford was a familiar quantity.
On the other hand, Jimmy Carter was anything but familiar. Those who now know Carter for the work he's done in his post-presidency, and for the mythology that sprouted in decades that followed, might find it hard to believe how different Carter was from candidates that came before, and how large an effect he had in defining the elections that came later.
It's hard to believe today when "white southern governor" defines the last sixteen years of the presidency, but when Carter ran from his base as governor of Georgia, no one had gone from a governorship to the White House since FDR. No southerner had been president since Andrew Johnson. It wasn't just geography he redefined. When Carter started laying the groundwork for his campaign in 1972, the accepted wisdom was that such farsighted planning was pointless. When Carter carefully built his name recognition door to door in Iowa and and through the town halls of New Hampshire, most candidates still looked at both contests as a side show, with little effect on states further down the line. Politics was about talking to other politicians and gaining the support of regional leaders, not talking directly to bozos behind the counter in some coffee shop. Jimmy Carter changed that.
It's also hard to appreciate that Jimmy Carter, born-again Baptist and Sunday School teacher, was a strongly progressive candidate who wanted to turn the tax structure on its ear.
"When a business executive can charge off a $50 luncheon on a tax return and a truck driver can't deduct his $1.50 sandwich -- when oil companies often pay less than 5% tax on their earnings while employees of the company pay at least three times this rate -- when many pay no taxes on income of more than $100,000 -- basic tax reform is necessary."
Carter also warned of the dangers shown by our lack of a long term plan, not just a long term plan for energy or the environment or the growing budget deficit, but for everything.
"Our nation now has no understandable national purpose, no clearly-defined goals, and no organizational mechanism to develop or achieve such purposes or goals. We move from one crisis to the next as if they were fads, even though the previous one hasn't been solved."
Carter meant that purpose to be in demonstrating that a nation could be based on upholding human rights and basic justice. It may be hard to see in retrospect, but for those campaigning in 1976, Carter wasn't just another politician, he was a visionary character who seemed capable of reforming the whole of American government as clearly as he had the nature of the primary season. He was a revolutionary. Which of course, made him scary.
If all things in 1976 had been the same as the situation in 2008, it's doubtful that someone as forthrightly progressive, as open, as willing to demand sacrifice from the people would have stood a chance. But there were differences in 1976.
First off, that big Democratic majority that had been put in place in 1972 and 1974 was an effective force that was unwilling to surrender their role to the Nixon administration. They didn't settle for sternly worded letters, or wait months for members of the administration to police themselves. They hauled in the members of the administration one by one, learned from them the story of at least a few of the administration's many transgressions, and took action. Though it's easy to argue that the crimes of Richard Nixon have been dwarfed by those of the Bush administration, in 1974 impeachment was not off the table.
For Gerald Ford, the nervousness of American public about replacing him with this progressive unknown was more than offset by one word: pardon. An effective Congress and a press unwilling to lie down and repeat what it was told sealed the end of the Nixon presidency and gave Jimmy Carter the chance to remodel the American presidency.
Carter hit the ground running. To replace the closed, secretive Nixon White House, he held biweekly press conferences. To shrug off the imperial airs the presidency had taken on, he didn't just walk to his inauguration, but set out immediately afterward to continue the town hall meetings that had marked his campaign. He carried with him the message he'd carried during the campaign: human rights, an open and honest foreign policy, placing long term planning ahead of short term gains, eliminating tax loopholes for the rich and corporations, and placing all our industry on a path to sustainability. He also revived that old dream of Harry Trumans's, national health insurance.
Unfortunately for Carter, he had an enemy. Not an enemy overseas, but the same enemy that had faced down Nixon.
By the time Carter took his place in the White House, the Congress wasn't just secure in its role as the object of the first section of the Constitution, it was ready to take on a bit of the second. Democratic congressmen looked on Carter with some of the same disdain that Ford had shown during the debates. Carter was an outsider. He had big plans that got in the way of a lot of old relationships. He just didn't understand how things were done in D.C.
Congress thwarted Carter's attempts to create national health insurance. They failed to take up tax reform. They blocked attempts to create a unified structure for energy and environmental regulation that was (and is) split among many agencies with contradictory goals and rules. Congressional leaders made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, and couldn't wait to laugh up their sleeves at the peanut farmer president.
As a reward, the party which controlled both houses of Congress and the White House was seen as painfully ineffective, leading to the loss of not only the White House, but an enormous swing in Congress. In 1980, a twelve seat swap gave Republicans control of the Senate only four years after Democrats had been awarded what appeared to be an unstoppable majority. Democrats had not hung together, and the result was that they hung separately.
There are a number of similarities between the election of 1976 and that of 2008, many of which stem from the close resemblance to the Nixon and Ford administrations which served as the proving grounds for so many who would later rise with Bush. There are also differences.
Let's hope that one of the differences going forward is a difference in the level of cooperation between White House and Congress should Barack Obama follow Jimmy Carter up Pennsylvania Avenue.
