Would our nation be substantially different if Jimmy Carter had been re-elected?

[GreenPartyVoter]

32 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes. Let me explain.
	25 (78%)
	No. Let me explain.
	0 (0%)
	Too many variables to even guess this.
	5 (16%)
	Who the heck cares? It's all ancient history. Focus on the here and now.
	1 (3%)
	I like to vote.
	1 (3%)
	Robb is a dingbat. (Hi, Robb! *wave*)
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[DonRedwood]

1. and Gore....

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Possibly, though, had Carter been re-elected the Bush regime might never have taken hold. Or the

Supreme Court might have been stacked with enough reasonable people to have actually let Democracy take its course.

[yellerpup]

2. We would have had clean energy

initiatives for the last 30 years, we would not be running a deficit, and the values of compassion and caring would be reinforced.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. I'd like to think so, too. :^) (Assuming Progressive Dems also landed the Hill and the SCOTUS.)

[yellerpup]

8. I laughed at the idea that ANYONE would vote

for Ronnie Ray-gun. Won't be making that mistake again.

[broiles]

5. and no wars.

[yellerpup]

9. And, no wars.

I think that would be true.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. How great would that have been?

[tk2kewl]

6. he probably would have had a very tough second term...

with the repugs fabricating scandals and the like, but at the very least we would have had four years less of trickle down bs

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. Possibly, especially if they still took over the news media.

[DoBotherMe]

7. No, he would have been impeached or

assassinated. Dana ; )

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Impeached for what, though? He seemed to keep his nose pretty clean from what I can tell.

[siligut]

13. They would make-up something or create a scenario and then attack

I agree, Carter was clean, so in order to get rid of him, they would have to create something. This thread raises some important issues, the biggest being oil men and their money. The second being war mongers and their money. Ruthless assholes with an agenda and the power to follow through.

[GreenPartyVoter]

50. That's what they do. No doubt about it.

[DoBotherMe]

14. That's right.

So they would have killed him. D ; )

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. That seems more likely.

[Major Nikon]

35. The GOP proved you can impeach someone over a blowjob

So it's not as if you really need a reason. The how part is a more difficult question. Tip O'Neill would have been Speaker for his 2nd term and the Democrats would have never allowed an impeachment vote to come up.

[GreenPartyVoter]

39. Both good points.

[HopeHoops]

15. If Carter had been re-elected, we'd probably have a renewable energy policy in place.

Carter put the solar panels on the White House. Reagan's first move was to have them removed. Think about it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. Yep, and better public transportation.

[HopeHoops]

18. Better? OH! You mean one that actually EXISTS!

[GreenPartyVoter]

19. Yeah, that!

[HopeHoops]

23. Ever been to Budapest? That's the main form of transportation.

My eldest spent her last semester there. There were almost no cars. Everything was foot, bike, or tram.

[GreenPartyVoter]

26. A lot of places are light years ahead of us on transportation. My grandfather said there was a time

when you could cross this country using nothing but trolleys and trains We have gone backwards.

[HopeHoops]

28. Um, yep. We're 100 years behind.

[moondust]

25. Yes, 30+ years of serious renewable R&D would have mattered.

Big time.

[csziggy]

82. Yes Carter had a plan to make the US energy independent

So we would not have be as worried about Iraq attacking Kuwait, thus no Gulf War I. Osama Bin Laden would not have had an excuse to hate the US for being in the 'Holy Land', so no 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, no 9/11 attack, no war in Afghanistan or in Iraq.

Our economy would be stronger since we would not be importing so much oil. The power of the big oil companies would be reduced and declining.

It would be a completely different world.

Edited to add:

Proposed Energy Policy
Jimmy Carter delivered this televised speech on April 18, 1977.

<SNIP>
Our national energy plan is based on ten fundamental principles.

The first principle is that we can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices.

The second principle is that healthy economic growth must continue. Only by saving energy can we maintain our standard of living and keep our people at work. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

The third principle is that we must protect the environment. Our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems -- wasteful use of resources. Conservation helps us solve both at once.

The fourth principle is that we must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve.

The fifth principle is that we must be fair. Our solutions must ask equal sacrifices from every region, every class of people, every interest group. Industry will have to do its part to conserve, just as the consumers will. The energy producers deserve fair treatment, but we will not let the oil companies profiteer.

The sixth principle, and the cornerstone of our policy, is to reduce the demand through conservation. Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way we can buy a barrel of oil for a few dollars. It costs about $13 to waste it.

The seventh principle is that prices should generally reflect the true replacement costs of energy. We are only cheating ourselves if we make energy artificially cheap and use more than we can really afford.

The eighth principle is that government policies must be predictable and certain. Both consumers and producers need policies they can count on so they can plan ahead. This is one reason I am working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy, to replace more than 50 different agencies that now have some control over energy.

The ninth principle is that we must conserve the fuels that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful. We can't continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves. We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy.

The tenth principle is that we must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.
<SNIP>

Full speech transcript: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-energy/

[MrSlayer]

20. Yes but I don't want to explain.

Because it's obvious.

[prairierose]

29. I agree n/t

[CTyankee]

21. Of course, it would be better! No question! We would have had a real start to another

Progressive era and renewable energy. Instead, we went backwards under Reagan.

I mourn the loss of Carter. It was our real opportunity. It was a crying shame...

[GreenPartyVoter]

30. Do you think if Carter had been re-elected, would Raygun have still run and

won after that? I'm guessing that if Carter's second term had gone well, perhaps not.

[CTyankee]

36. Reagan used his movie career training to maximum advantage and projected what

Carter could not project: sunny optimism. He fooled a great number of people in this country.

When I think of all the wise things that Carter did or proposed that were so ahead of his time and would have been so beneficial to this country, I get depressed.

[GreenPartyVoter]

37. Yeah, hard not to get depressed over that. And I think Raygun was the

folksy "I can have a beer with this guy" before ** played that card. (Although, ** played it to the nth degree.)

[CTyankee]

38. I guess I should have realized back when Reagan won over Carter that the U.S. was on its

way into a steep decline. I was, at the time, angry with Carter for screwing up, but I educated myself and found out the truth...too late but now I am wiser...and infinitely sadder...

[twins.fan]

22. The PC was created around the time of the Carter Presidency, along with Carter's energy policies

The specs related to the PC have exploded since then, improving in almost every facet by an order of at least three, improving over a thousand fold. The processor ran at about 5 MHz, now runs around 3GHz. Typical RAM was 640 KB; today 4GB; Harddrive, well the first was one or two floppies about 360K; now 1TB; Other specs show similar evolution.

Imagine if alternative energy had evolved similarly, but Reagan killed alternative energy. Carter could have carried it MUCH, MUCH further. It is a tragedy.

[GreenPartyVoter]

40. Oh, yes. Not saying we'd have cold fusion, but we would surely be in a much better place with

energy, and probably automobiles. I am sure he would have kept pushing for better mileage.

[twins.fan]

41. Oh hell yeah!!!!!

These hybrids are cranking out some mileage. That could have been happening a couple of decades ago. The next generation coming out this fall are going to be cooking!! Ford Fusion, a midsize car, is going to be getting 47mpg in the city!! Then they are going to be getting Ford Fusions that can be recharged too next year.

On NPR a couple of months ago, it was reported that the US has been reducing its gasoline consumption since 2007. It is going to keep happening. And Carter began the process, God Bless Him. If he could have only been able to fulfill his vision then.

[Omaha Steve]

24. Raygun promised guns to Iran IF it kept the hostages instead of negotiating with Carter

Had it not been for the failed rescue attempt, the US would be much better today.

[GreenPartyVoter]

48. Yes, absolutely! That was the exact moment when it all started to fall apart.

[Freddie]

52. Yup

Trickle-down voodoo economics and the unholy alliance with the Religious Right all began with St. Ronnie, a man who rarely set foot in a church.
At one time political parties worked together (after the election) for the good of the country. The current hyper-partisanship and demonization of "liberals" began during the St. Ronnie era.

[GreenPartyVoter]

53. Do you figure the pendulum will swing back in our lifetimes?

[lastlib]

76. No. The Repukes will never be civil again....

...They've found out how to leverage hatred against liberals into political power, and they're drunk on it. They will never go back unless we kick their asses into oblivion and then rehab.

[GaYellowDawg]

81. Sometimes I wonder

if those helicopters had some help from the CIA in their failure.

[limpyhobbler]

27. Looking back, it really does seem to have been a very important election.

[GreenPartyVoter]

49. Absolutely.

[Drunken Irishman]

74. Just a tad.

[Uncle Joe]

31. Yes, without a doubt.

Thanks for the thread, GreenPartyVoter.

[GreenPartyVoter]

32. I think sometimes it's worth considering the not taken, if we can take inspiration from it. This

time, I will be honest. I kinda find it more depressing than inspiring. But ask me again after _this_ election.

[Uncle Joe]

33. I agree, GreenPartyVoter but I believe sober deliberation on prior choices and events

in the long run adds to "mass wisdom" if you will, making our upcoming choices all the more vivid.

Peace to you.

[GreenPartyVoter]

34. Agreed. Learn from history. Peace to you, also!

[edhopper]

42. oh God YES

it isn't really debatable.

[GreenPartyVoter]

44. If we could have kept Reagan and the ** family out of power, absolutely.

[Douglas Carpenter]

43. yes, but if Ford had won reelection in 1976 things would be substantially different too

Last edited Wed Aug 15, 2012, 10:41 PM - Edit history (1)

If President Carter had been reelected in 1980 the budget would have been balanced by 1983 even according to David Stockman -financial recovery would have kicked in by the end of his second term. The radical right-wing economic philosophy that came in with Reagan would have not been legitimized.

If Ford had been reelected in 1976 - the Republicans would have taken the heat for the inevitable dramatic spikes in interest rates and inflation that was the result of polices supported by both parties at the time and simply the market adjusting to floating currency rates that created a whole new world of a speculation driven economy following the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Bretton Woods Agreement by Nixon in August of 1971.

So either the reelection of Ford in 1976 or the reelection of Carter in 1980 might have spared the world the nightmare of Reaganism.

[GreenPartyVoter]

46. And by extension may have spared us the Bushies as well.

[upi402]

45. Raygun and his mob were uber bad

And the media is deifying the douche bags.
Traitorous.

[GreenPartyVoter]

47. And a lot of his mob still have their hands in things.

[Historic NY]

51. Energy indepenence & solar would have had 8 yrs

to move forward instead of reverse under Reagan.

[Deep13]

54. Well, we might still have labor unions. nt

[Kalidurga]

55. Yes but I don't want to explain...

It is too sad. There are many posters that have pointed out what we have lost already and I have nothing else to add.

[Drunken Irishman]

56. Most certainly. But the question is too easy...

Jimmy Carter was not going to be reelected. The economy fell into a recession in 1980 and he had to live down the Iran hostage crisis, which plunged his approval ratings into the 30s. That doesn't even begin to touch on the gas shortage and malaise that had set in across the country in the wake of Watergate.

What we should be asking is how substantially different would America be if Ford had eked out a victory in '76? Whomever won that election was doomed to failure in the late 70s and had Ford won it, which is entirely possible with how close the results were, Democrats probably take the White House in '80 and Ronald Reagan never happens.

But Jimmy Carter was not going to be reelected. So, asking that question is like asking what life would be like if we evolved from ducks instead of apes.

[Douglas Carpenter]

57. Winning in 76 was the ultimate booby prize. Remember how close Reagan came to winning the GOP

nomination in 76? He lost it only by the skin of his teeth. The absolute best case scenario that could have possibly have happened in in 76 is if Reagan had won in 76 and then won the general election in November. The economy was simply going to go haywire in the late 70's no matter who won and both parties were essentially on the same page at the time regarding currency management. If Reagan had become president in 76 rather than 80 - Reaganism and the ideology behind it could have been discredited and delegitimized for a generation to come. But I guess that wasn't God's will.

[Drunken Irishman]

60. Yup. That right there would have set trickle-down economics back a generation...

Would have absolutely destroyed the far-right of the party and the Republicans would have continued to be a more economically populist party that still held sane positions on a wide range of policies.

It's crazy how one little election can change an outcome.

[madinmaryland]

69. That's possible. But more likely, Reagan would have attacked Iran and easily won the war, leading

to a second term.

After Viet Nam, winning a war would have been a serious boost.

[Drunken Irishman]

70. Agreed. Winning a war nearly got Poppa Bush a second term.

[GreenPartyVoter]

58. Well, that makes sense too. There are still two problems, though under your scenario and mine which

are the Moral Majority taking over the GOP, and the RW taking over the media. If those things had still happened we could still have still wound up with some trickle down nut in the WH, even it it wasn't Reagan. Less likely of course, if things were going well with the country, but still a possibility.

[Drunken Irishman]

59. Hard to say...

Ford was a moderate and would have probably continued to be a moderate president. In '80, Republicans probably do nominate Reagan, since Ford would not have been eligible to run (he had served three years of Nixon's final term), but with the economy in the state it was, and Republicans having held the White House for 12 years, Reagan, or whomever the Republicans nominate, goes down to defeat against the Democrats - maybe Ted Kennedy or another.

Reagan is done after the loss and whomever wins in '80 is reelected rather easily in '84 due to the economic expansion we saw after the recession. That means, in '88, the Republicans probably continue their centrist message and nominate either H.W. Bush or another boring moderate who may or may not win. If they do win, without the Moral Majority that took root under Reagan, we probably get a right-of-center president for four years and in '92, Jerry Brown or Mario Cuomo runs and unseats the incumbent, solidifying the Democrats' position in American politics, while Republicans are forced to adapt to that like the Democrats were in the early 90s.

So...

1977-1981: Jerry Ford
1981-1989: Gary Hart
1989-1993: Bob Dole
1993-2001: Jerry Brown
2001-2004: Al Gore
2005-2009: John McCain
2009-20xx: Barack Obama

Imagine a country like that ... yes, Republicans own the presidency, but Dole & McCain (before McCain went off the deep end to appease the psychos)? I can tolerate that.

[GreenPartyVoter]

61. Yeah. Any timeline without a Raygun and ** presidency sounds great to me!

[Drunken Irishman]

64. Better yet...imagine Humphrey beats Nixon in '68...

Almost did. Lost by less than a percentage point and had all the momentum heading into the final week. Had the election been held a week later, he very well could have won.

[GreenPartyVoter]

79. Even better. I might have grown up without my Dad yelling at the evening news!

[madinmaryland]

65. The next question that one would have to assume, is what would have happened if

Ford had become president in 76. We really have no idea what type of president Ford would have been if he had actually been elected.

Would Ford have let the Shah of Iran to come to the US and would there have been an Iran Hostage "crisis". Would Ted Koppel still be an "Ace Reporter" in North Dakota? There may have been no oil embargo in 79, also.

Of course in the 78 or 79 Ford could have fallen down the stairs and been incapacitated, leading Nelson Rockefeller to become President. Nelson, being able to run, brings the Rockefeller dynasty to the pinacle and serves eight distinguished years as President.

[Drunken Irishman]

66. And in his farewell address to America, Rockefeller ends it by looking straight into the camera...

And telling the American people to go fuck themselves.

?w=600&h=537

[madinmaryland]

67. Heh! I had forgotten that!! As an aside, if JFK had not been assasinated, would Nixon have run

again in 64? Or is it possible that Goldwater would have run and actually won in 64.

Edited to add: If Goldwater had been elected, none of us would be alive to have this conversation.





The ironic thing is what would Stephanie Miller done with her life if she had been the daughter of a republican vice president?

[Drunken Irishman]

68. The horror!

I guess if Goldwater had won, he probably would've nuked Vietnam and in that regard, at least my dad wouldn't have been sent off to fight that war, since nothing would exist in that region anymore! haha

Not that I condone the idea of nuking Vietnam...just sayin'.

[madinmaryland]

71. What probably would have happened under a President Goldwater..

(I have to throw up just saying that), is that the legislation passed by LBJ probably would not have been passed for another 20 years.

If JFK was alive in 64, Nixon would probably have run against Goldwater. Would Nixon have won against in JFK in 64? He probably would have used the Southern Strategy, but would it have worked? If he lost, he would never run again. How would this have affected Reagan?

This brings up some interesting names on the Democratic side from the late 60's. What about Eugene McCarthy, Ed Muskie, Hubert Humphrey. Would some of the more liberal members of the Democratic Party had a better chance in the 70's? President McCarthy in 1972 beating Ronald Reagan? Now that brings a smile to my face!

[Drunken Irishman]

73. I think Kennedy would've won in '64...

He was popular and the economy wasn't sagging. It probably would've been far closer than LBJ's victory over Goldwater, but he would've prevailed. Nixon wouldn't have run against Kennedy again. He hated Kennedy and I think a loss to JFK in '64 would have destroyed him.

So, Goldwater might prevail similarly and do better than he did in real life but, as I said, still lose.

Nixon definitely makes a run in '68 with Kennedy being term limited and if we're led to believe Kennedy really had a plan to pull out of Vietnam, I see no reason why the Democrats can't win in '68. They came close, and that was with Vietnam dominating the discussion.

Humphrey would not be VP in this scenario, so he'd be limited in that regard. McCarthy would be a popular choice, as would Muskie, who should have won the nomination four years later.

More importantly, RFK probably doesn't run because, well, a Kennedy succeeding a Kennedy? Wasn't going to happen. So, without a run, he's not assassinated in California and maybe, if Nixon still wins, he runs in '72 ... crushing Nixon's reelection chances.

[madinmaryland]

62. It might have slightly changed things, but considering the state of the economy, the only

thing that would have helped Carter get elected was actually rescuing the hostages in April 1980. It might have given him enough of a bump that Ted Kennedy would have backed off and given Carter an endorsement at the convention.

Next, the economy only continued to go down after 1980 and probably would have done something similar the next couple of years if Carter was president.

Also, guess who would have been the front runners in 1984? George HW Bush and Walter Mondale. It is quite possible that Bush would have been elected in 1984, had the economy followed the path it did in 1981/2. I suppose John Anderson could have made another run in 1984, but after running as an independent he was dead to repukes. Mondale who have to have been considered the favorite in 84 (like Gore was in 2000), and would have had the inside track to the democratic nomination.

Then you need to analyze what might have happened if either of those two had won in 1984 after a two term Carter Administration.

Knowing my luck, Toby Moffett would have been elected Governor of Connecticut and then actually run for President in 1996 and won with his Vice Presidential candidate, Dick Morris...



FUCK!!!!

[GreenPartyVoter]

63. It's amazing all the variables that come into play trying to figure this one out. I hadn't even

thought about Ted Kennedy!

[hifiguy]

72. Alternative histories always require a given set of assumptions

but I think a few important things would have been different.

First and foremost, a second Carter term would have brought about massive investments in non-carbon energy sources. Even if the Republicans had taken the Senate, Repubs in those days were a different breed of cat entirely. One could cut a deal beneficial to the couhtry with a guy like Howard Baker. Those repukes, save for a few of the Jesse Helms mossbacks that kept looking for loopholes int he Emancipation Proclamation, were pretty reasonable people. Today we call them Moderate Democrats. The modern Repuke party is an open air lunatic asylum with the craziest inmates in charge.

[longship]

75. Would our nation be different if Reagan was a transgendered Venusian?

Just kidding.

But hypotheticals about the past are not very useful, especially when over three decades have gone by.

They can be fun, though. But I like Reagan as a Venusian tranny better.
Again, kidding.

Have at it, DUers.

[GreenPartyVoter]

91. They can be fun, but in this case they can also be depressing. Ah, what if??

[luv_mykatz]

77. Yes.

He would have been a huge improvement over Ronnie Raygun. Raygun was 8 years of destruction for this country. The Repukes needed an actor to front their evil schemes.

[BeyondGeography]

78. Good question; Carter is far more relevant than the MSM would have people think

We've been running from the realities he addressed with honesty (rampant selfishness and environmental disaster) for more than 30 years and, here they are, staring us in the face. He asked us to grow up and we retreated into childhood and fantasy. He tried to lead and we declined, in both senses of the term.

[GreenPartyVoter]

90. Yes, I think you are absolutely right.

[quaker bill]

80. Perhaps not

Carter had too much compassion to throw the country intentionally into a recession, like Reagan did. The recession was actually the only possible cure for "stagflation". They had to jack interest rates through the roof to collapse the economy. Only Reagan had the sufficient lack of concern for pain and suffering to pull that trigger. Carter was trying for a soft landing from the Nixon deficits and Nixon's wage and price controls being lifted at the end of VietNam. There was no economic soft landing to be had.

[GreenPartyVoter]

83. Hmmm. I hadn't considered that.

[BeyondGeography]

84. That was Volker's job and he was already pursuing that strategy under Carter, who appointed him

which didn't do much for Carter's chances in 1980, even though he was doomed anyway. Presidents don't set interest rates. They do appoint the Fed chair and Volker was a gutsy choice.

[quaker bill]

86. But Reagan had him push it to the hilt to collaspe the economy

It is unclear to me that he would have had Carter's backing to go that far.

This was the one and only time that supply side economics had a chance of working in the last century or so. In fact, supplies were short and too many dollars were chasing too few goods causing inflation. Further capital to expand businesses was in short supply due to massive VietNam deficit spending and very high interest rates. Relatively full employment had been reached so there was competition for labor, I saw the biggest raises percentagewise I have ever seen in my life. So raising interest rates and cutting taxes actually made some sense as an economic plan for that limited moment. They, of course, went too far.

The plan worked a bit that one time, not all that well, but a bit. Because of this, it has become a religion on the right. What they refuse to get is that there are vast number of good economic solutions, each designed to address a specific economic problem. None are a panacea. Keynes' solution would have been just as absolutely wrong in 1980 as it is completely right now.

[KurtNYC]

85. definitely different but hard to see exactly in which direction

likely we would have the metric system and the solar panels on the Whitehouse

Fairness doctrine would have remained in place.

might have gone to war with Iran as the hostages would NOT have been released and the USSR was next door in Afghanistan

and right now we might a bit more like Canada, who delayed their dance with the conservative devils much longer than we.

[GreenPartyVoter]

89. Hadn't even thought of the metric system being in place!

[kenny blankenship]

87. The other way round.

If we were the kind of country that could choose Carter (rationalist engineer) over Reagan (an obscurantist, anti-intellectual, 2d projection of celluloid mythology and showcase of the mortuary arts), we would be a different country - and we would surely still be different today. But we were not that country, and we still aren't. And the time when it might have mattered whether we chose to face up to our reality and its emerging challenges, unwelcome responsibilities, and frustrating limitations, instead of passively reclining into familiar illusions and dreams of unlimited, unearned privileges, has long since passed. Thirty years of damaging mass delusion chosen by landslide will not be undone. If our "leaders" even dream of charting a new direction they don't dare think about it out loud. Reagan might hear them.

[GreenPartyVoter]

88. Sadly, this may be the truest point made. :^(

[Octafish]

92. Yes. Secret Government wouldn't be running things.

October Surprise was just the beginning.

Safari Club was just one modus operandi.

Selection 2000 sealed the Happy Deal.

[GreenPartyVoter]

93. No, one would hope not!