WITH a grin that is instantly recognisable, the candidate strolls past flashing poker machines in a Las Vegas casino, sticks out his hand and introduces himself: “Hi, my name is Jack Carter. My father used to be President.” Even the rows of chain-smoking gamblers, their eyes usually fixed to the whirring symbols before them, turn their jaded faces and look with astonishment at the spitting image of the Georgia peanut farmer who in 1976 came from nowhere to win the White House. Mr Carter, the oldest son of Jimmy Carter, is seeking a US Senate seat for the Democrats in Nevada this November. He was born in the tiny rural town of Plains, Georgia, but is plotting his first election campaign from his adopted home of Las Vegas, where the nightclubs and casinos of the strip contrast starkly with the red earth and lumber trucks of his childhood.
Mr Carter, 58, also started work 40 years ago as a peanut farmer but turned to investment banking, lived in Bermuda until three years ago and has spent years running his own hedge fund business. He is borrowing heavily on the themes of his father’s 1976 presidential campaign — honesty and integrity after an era of Republican scandal — and is brazen about how he hopes that the 39th President will propel him to victory in his challenge to the Republican senator John Ensign. People appear fascinated. They are also surprised: many remember Amy Carter, the President’s daughter who was a teenager when he lived in the White House, but few realise that he also had three grown-up sons.
“I’ve got an advantage my daddy didn’t have,” Mr Carter said over dinner at the Sun Coast casino, yards from a vast expanse of roulette wheels and blackjack tables. “Nobody knew who Jimmy Carter was. I’m going to use his name to raise money and get in the door. I have a certain celebrity status.” Next morning, in front of a group of care workers, he laments — with a Southern drawl just like his father’s — the incompetence of the Bush Administration, the Iraq war and soaring budget deficits. He pitches himself as a small-town farmer — “my daddy was one of those guys” — and as a successful businessman who understands the importance of fiscal responsibility.
Analysts say that he has an uphill battle to unseat Ensign, a relatively popular senator. He also has a 1970 discharge from the US Navy for marijuana and LSD use to explain. But last week he received the welcome news that he will not face a Democrat primary opponent.
Mr Carter believes that he can win against a Bush loyalist at a time when the country is deeply dissatisfied with the President and the Republicans. He might be right. One of his audience, John Jackson, 55, said: “I’m a Republican and I’m voting for Jack Carter. I’m sick of the way the Republicans are going. And, like his father, he’s a good guyhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2160375,00.html
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