Jimmy Carter calls role in his grandson’s campaign ‘minimal’

Former President Jimmy Carter continues to remain active as he nears his 90th birthday in October. In addition to assisting with his grandson’s campaign for governor, Carter earlier this year published his 28th book, “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power.” He also continues to speak out on national and international issues, including the most recent conflicts in the Middle East and the reach of the National Security Agency. Earlier this month, he led a discussion at the Carter Center about human rights violations during Argentina’s “Dirty War.”

He also continues travels the globe on humanitarian issues and diplomatic trips but still makes his home in Plains, where he regularly teaches Sunday school classes at a nearby Baptist church. He recently returned home from a fishing trip in a remote part of Russia and has a packed calendar through the year’s end.

Carter’s recent work

Former President Jimmy Carter continues to remain active as he nears his 90th birthday in October. In addition to assisting with his grandson’s campaign for governor, Carter earlier this year published his 28th book, “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power.” He also continues to speak out on national and international issues, including the most recent conflicts in the Middle East and the reach of the National Security Agency. Earlier this month, he led a discussion at the Carter Center about human rights violations during Argentina’s “Dirty War.”

He also continues travels the globe on humanitarian issues and diplomatic trips but still makes his home in Plains, where he regularly teaches Sunday school classes at a nearby Baptist church. He recently returned home from a fishing trip in a remote part of Russia and has a packed calendar through the year’s end.

The event in Albany was only a short drive from Jimmy Carter’s hometown of 750 people. The 89-year-old former president’s heart told him to go in support of Jason Carter’s gubernatorial bid. But the old politician’s gut told him to stay away, lest he steal the spotlight from his grandson’s campaign.

“He needs to show the Georgia people accurately that he’s his own man; he’s the one that’s going to make the decisions during the campaign, he’s going to make decision’s when he’s governor,” Jimmy Carter said in his first extensive interview about his grandson’s political bid.

As the younger Carter ratchets up his bid to oust Gov. Nathan Deal, one of his biggest challenges is carving out a role for his grandpa, a homegrown president who is widely beloved for his humanitarian work outside the White House — he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 — but remains a divisive figure for his one-term presidential record.

In an interview at his office in Plains, the ex-president said he, too, was trying to strike a balance with his grandson's campaign. He has so far shunned a high-profile incursion into the race but increasingly helps by making fundraising appeals, opening doors in his donor network and offering behind-the-scenes counsel.

“I would say a minimal role in the campaign itself,” he said of his public role moving forward. “But when he asks us to do something, we’ll make every effort to do so.”

Two monumental tasks

Early polls show a tight contest between Deal and Jason Carter, an Atlanta state senator whose appeal centers on a promise to bolster education funding. Carter’s campaign has surprised many by far outpacing Deal’s fundraising in recent months. But the young state senator still faces the epic task of unseating a powerful incumbent.

Republicans hold all statewide offices, including both U.S. Senate seats, and the GOP dominates the congressional delegation. During the last gubernatorial contest Deal beat former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes by 10 percentage points. And rural Georgia, once solidly in Democratic hands, is now a GOP stronghold. Republicans now hold the state House and Senate seats that represent Jimmy Carter’s hometown.

Carter knows his grandson must overcome a pair of monumental challenges to win.

First, the campaign must significantly boost African-American turnout through get-out-the-vote efforts.

The elder Carter said he hoped Democrat Michelle Nunn’s campaign for the U.S. Senate would work in tandem with his grandson’s to draw out minority voters. Nunn is the daughter of former Democratic U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, and Democrats hope that having two iconic Democratic names at the top of the November ballot will bolster their chances.

The second task was where the former president saw a role for himself. His grandson, he said, must capture about 30 percent of the white vote to prevail in November — no small task in a state where the Democratic Party's share of the white vote hovers closer to 20 percent.

The elder Carter noted that a recent AJC survey showed his favorability rating rising above 60 percent. He said he sees that as a sign his name and legacy appeal to the bloc of white voters who once served as the backbone of the party.

“That would go a long way to get Jason the white voters he requires,” the former president said, adding: “I think that in balance, Georgians are still proud I was a governor who performed well and a president who represented our state.”

‘Cloak of extremism’

The governor's campaign has tried to tie his opponent to the former president, claiming "every dollar raised by the grandfather wraps the grandson a little tighter in that cloak of extremism." And Deal has derided his opponent for making "his very famous grandfather" a centerpiece of a campaign that could set him on a path to the White House.

"If we have a Governor Carter, do you not believe he will immediately start to follow his grandfather's footsteps so he can be a second President Carter?" he said in a conference call with GOP lawmakers.

In the interview, Jimmy Carter said any attempt to make this race about him would backfire, as would efforts to question his 38-year-old grandson’s background. He noted that he, too, was a little-known state senator before winning the governor’s race when he was 44.

“I would guess that Jason, having served in his third term in the Senate, knows as much about Georgia as Deal did when he was elected,” he said.

He described his grandson as “adamantly opposed” to jumping in the race when the topic first bubbled up last year at a family dinner. When the two met to talk it over, the elder Carter shared stories about his shoestring campaign — which landed him in $60,000 of debt — not so much as a blueprint but as a lesson on the importance of grass-roots politicking.

An Israeli interlude

One area where the former president acknowledged he could pose problems for the campaign is among Georgia’s Jewish voters. He upset many in the Jewish community by criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and publicly meeting with Hamas, which opposes Israel’s existence.

The former president has apologized, and his grandson recently issued a white paper opposing sanctions or divestment campaigns that would "isolate and deligitimize Israel." Deal, meanwhile, has sought to earn Jewish backing by traveling to Israel on a trade mission. And his campaign criticized the elder Carter's call for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

The elder Carter, though, said he overcame similar opposition from the Jewish community when he negotiated the landmark peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

“If any Jewish voters in Georgia want to question me, I’d be glad to be questioned,” he said. “If I have one constant prayer in the last 35 years, it’s to bring peace to Israel. Which means bringing peace to Israel’s neighbors as well.”

The two Carters share other significant policy differences, most recently a rift over a broad expansion of gun rights that the ex-president opposed but his grandson supported in a Senate vote. Jimmy Carter said that after a long conversation with his grandson, he came to understand why his grandson voted for the proposal.

“He understands that, in Georgia, Second Amendment rights are supreme,” he said.

That gun vote, though, is somewhat of an anachronism so far in his campaign.

While Nunn’s Senate campaign carries a middle-of-the-road appeal, Jason Carter pitches himself to the party’s base by advocating, for example, to expand Medicaid. Jimmy Carter, who also faced charges of being too liberal in his 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan, said his grandson needn’t worry that voters perceive him as too left-leaning.

“He’s a fiscal conservative and he’ll manage the state’s affairs much better than Governor Deal,” the former president said, adding his prediction for his grandson’s future: “I think he’ll run twice,” he said of his grandson. “He’ll run again in 2018 when he wants to be re-elected as governor.”