By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
Jimmy Carter’s presidential legacy is a complicated one. Decried by some as ineffective and overly idealistic, it’s at least safe to say he took office at a complicated time in American history – and foreign policy in particular.
I’m not here to talk about Jimmy Carter as a president, though. I was in Kindergarten when he lost the race to Ronald Reagan, so my firsthand memories of his presidency are limited. There are other historians better equipped to deal with his presidential legacy than I could ever be.
What I would like to talk about, briefly, is Jimmy Carter as a person.
For as long as I can remember there was a signed, framed photograph of the man hanging in the hallway of my grandparents’ home. Carter, my grandmother would proudly tell you, was the last person from either major party she voted for in a presidential election.
She still voted in local and state elections. She still voted, as far as I know, for Senators and Congressional seats. But she refused to make a choice between the “lesser of two evils” that the rest of us feel compelled to make every four years. If she couldn’t have another president with the integrity of Jimmy Carter, she said, she wasn’t going to vote for any of them.
She felt so strongly about Carter and his character that, after the 1980 election, she wrote him a letter reflecting her disappointment that he wouldn’t be able to continue in the role. That, I was told as a child, is where the signed photo came from. Carter responded to her letter not with the standard boilerplate form letter. Many folks receive those types of letters, along with signed photos, after writing to public figures.
What my nan received was a personal, hand-written response, thanking her for her kind words and her support.
At a time when the President of the United States was dealing with an electoral loss, and the reality of his new lame duck status, no one would have blamed him for sending out the standard generic form letter. Not even, I’m sure, my grandmother. But that isn’t what President Carter did. He took the time to read, and respond, in a way that made a distinct impression on her and – by proxy – her grandchildren. (Or, at least, on this grandchild.)
His dedication to public service after he left office, including his volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity, is well known. He also served as an ambassador for Shriners Children’s Hospitals, and continued his advocacy for energy efficiency and environmental protection.
All of that volunteer work, on its own, would make him worthy of remembrance and recognition. But for me it will always be that letter, that time he took out of his day – when he was himself undoubtedly disappointed with the end of his time in the Oval Office – to console and encourage a supporter that I think of first when I think of Jimmy Carter.
It wasn’t something he did for the cameras. It wasn’t something he did for publicity. It wasn’t something he did for any other reason than it was the decent, human thing to do.
That, I think, sums up Jimmy Carter the person better than anything else. He exemplified the kind of plain human decency that is sorely lacking not just in politics, but American society in general.
With his passing, while we may argue over whether we lost a good president, there is no doubt that we lost a good man. I can’t think of a better legacy myself.
