Blog Post 5: Jimmy Carter

Blog 5: Jimmy Carter

            Jimmy Carter had a rather strange rise to the presidency. It involved the support of many evangelical voters because he was labeled as the first “born again” president. This support however left him as quickly as it came.

            At the beginning of Jimmy Carter’s campaign, a lot of Americans were tired of the political scandals and wanted a president that would not lie to them. They wanted a moral president for a change. Americans were not happy about the way the government was being ran. Watergate had taken a toll on the American voter and was making us look weak during a time when we could not afford to. Jimmy Carter began to champion the idea of bringing truth to the government. Carter said that he would “never knowingly lie” to the American people. He also believed that the United States deserved a government “as good as the American people.” Evangelicals were most likely thinking they would finally have the president they could get behind.

            The evangelical support would quickly evaporate amongst conservative leaders however. The support began to disappear with an interview that Jimmy Carter had done with Playboy. Some Conservative evangelical leaders believed the interview was less than ideal. They also did not like the fact that he was even involved with the magazine. This fiasco was not final straw however. When the American government began to mess with the Christian schools, conservative evangelical leaders began to speak up. The Christian schools that are in question, were beginning to become segregationist schools. The schools would hold to the ideal of black students not being allowed to enter or other discriminatory rules would be in place at these schools. Once the IRS began to remove their tax emption status, conservative evangelicals began to turn completely away from Jimmy Carter.

            The Religious Right and other conservative groups were beginning to take form and fight against Jimmy Carter. They would become a voting bloc in the 1980s and help push Jimmy Carter out of the white house after just one term.