What if... Carter had defeated Reagan in 1980?

[afleitch]

I enjoyed the 'Bush win 92' scenario, so I thought of my own! Looking at the atlas, only a few percent swings in nearly all southern states (plus a few elsewhere) would have seen Carter re-elected. If Carter had won. How would history have panned out? I can see Mondale running in 1984 as he did in reality, but who would the Republicans choose? How would 1988 go? and so on. Have fun.

[12th Doctor]

Carter winning re-election?  That's so scary i don't want to think about that.  3/4 of the world would probably be communist right now.

[Gustaf]

Carter winning re-election?  That's so scary i don't want to think about that.  3/4 of the world would probably be communist right now.

I don't think that would have happened, since the Soviet Union was bound to fall, anyway. Reagan probably sped up the process, but the USSR was going down. I do think that the world would have been in much worse shape though, and the risk for a nuclear war, or something similar, would have been bigger, b/c Carter was viewed as weak, and America's enemies would have been counting on him not to respond, and when he did, things would have turned bad. It would be 1939 all over again. Reagan was viewed as a lunatic hard-liner in the USSR and other places, and that deterred enemies.

Btw, the Bush-92 scenario was kind of realistic, pre-supposing that Perot didn't run for example, but Carter was defeated in a landslide.  

[© tweed]

Carter was still up big in the polls until a few months before the election, so this isn't all that unrealistic.

Reagan might still have run 1984, but for only one term because he started to lose it right about then.

[Gustaf]

Carter was still up big in the polls until a few months before the election, so this isn't all that unrealistic.

Reagan might still have run 1984, but for only one term because he started to lose it right about then.

OK, then. But wouldn't it have been hard for Reagan if he first lost the nomination in 1976 and then the election in 1980, to come back again?

[© tweed]

Carter was still up big in the polls until a few months before the election, so this isn't all that unrealistic.

Reagan might still have run 1984, but for only one term because he started to lose it right about then.

OK, then. But wouldn't it have been hard for Reagan if he first lost the nomination in 1976 and then the election in 1980, to come back again?

Well----he wasn't supposed to win the nomination in 1976, so that doesn't really count.

[dazzleman]

Carter was still up big in the polls until a few months before the election, so this isn't all that unrealistic.

Reagan might still have run 1984, but for only one term because he started to lose it right about then.

I think Carter lost his last chance to win re-election when the hostage rescue mission failed in April 1980.

If you didn't live through that period, it's hard to understand the depth and intensity of Carter's unpopularity.  The country was enduring sky-high inflation, shortages of gasoline, and humiliation on several fronts simultaneously in foreign policy.  Rightly or wrongly, Carter was at least partially blamed by many people for these poor circumstances, and I don't think it's really realistic to think that he had any real shot at re-election after the hostage rescue mission failed.

I think that a Carter victory would have been a disaster.  Before the election, he sent Averell Harriman to seek the help of the Soviets, asking that they do something to ease relations to make it appear that he was more effective than the public perceived in dealing with them, and promised them favors during his second term in return.  [The Soviets decided to let Carter sink, which was in retrospect a very bad decision on their part.]  

Carter would have pursued an accomdationist, rather than a confrontational, policy (as Reagan did) with the Soviets during his second term, with the result that they would have survived longer and remained a threat to us longer.  We would not have had the breakthroughs in disarmament that Reagan achieved, and without Reagan's defense buildup, the west would have been more vulnerable to Soviet aggression.  The whole equation may have changed without strong leadership in the west (which Carter obviously was not able to provide), and the Soviets may have reacted to their grave economic difficulties by striking out aggressively rather than meekly imploding.

Whatever Reagan's shortcomings may have been, I will always believe that his 1980 election was one of the greatest things for the free world that happened during the post-World War II period, and that the re-election of Carter would have been a catastrophe of the first order.

[© tweed]

Carter was still up big in the polls until a few months before the election, so this isn't all that unrealistic.

Reagan might still have run 1984, but for only one term because he started to lose it right about then.

I think Carter lost his last chance to win re-election when the hostage rescue mission failed in April 1980.

If you didn't live through that period, it's hard to understand the depth and intensity of Carter's unpopularity.  

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I did live in that period.

[dazzleman]

I never said you didn't.  That's why I said "if," it was directed at a wider audience.

I can remember back then, my mom couldn't even pick up the paper and read anything that Carter did without blowing her stack.  You couldn't even mention Carter's name in front of my grandmother.

I had a part time job at that time, and virtually everybody I worked with (older people) hated Carter with a passion.

Maybe the people I knew weren't representative, but hatred of Carter among people I knew was pretty strong and consistent for close to 2 years before the 1980 election.

[© tweed]

I don't see how you can hate Jimmy carter.  He is a wonderful person and ahs done great things for humanity.  You ca criticize his policies justifiably, but he is not hateable.

[dazzleman]

I don't see how you can hate Jimmy carter.  He is a wonderful person and ahs done great things for humanity.  You ca criticize his policies justifiably, but he is not hateable.

Maybe you can say that now, but most people didn't think he was a wonderful person when they were sitting on gas lines, or watching our blind-folded diplomats being paraded around Tehran as hostages.

We have gotten diverted here, but I stand by my original point -- there was a deep and broad reservoir of resentment, even hatred, for Carter by 1980 that would have made his re-election difficult without something dramatic, such as a successful hostage rescue mission, to dissipate it.

[© tweed]

It's not that we disagree that Carter's presidency was a failure, but it seems that we are disagreeing on something here.

I was not old enough to vote in 1980, but if I was, I would not have supported either the failed president or the Movie Actor, I would have supported John Anderson of the National Union party.  Anderson got 6.6% of the vote in 1980, basically for the reasons I cited.

[dazzleman]

It's not that we disagree that Carter's presidency was a failure, but it seems that we are disagreeing on something here.

I was not old enough to vote in 1980, but if I was, I would not have supported either the failed president or the Movie Actor, I would have supported John Anderson of the National Union party.  Anderson got 6.6% of the vote in 1980, basically for the reasons I cited.

The hatred of Carter was never personal; it was just that people hated what happened to the country during his presidency, and rightly or wrongly (I think mostly rightly) he was blamed.  But not even his worst enemies ever really thought he was a bad person.

I disagreed with your statement that Carter stood a reasonable chance of re-election in 1980.  I don't think you were really taking into account the depth of anti-Carter feeling at that time.  And don't forget, much of the reason some people like him today (I'm not one of them) is what he did after his presidency, which of course wasn't a factor at the time.

Most people that year were looking for any type of credible alternative to Carter.  I knew some people who swore up and down that they wouldn't vote for Reagan because he was too old and too conservative, but ended up doing just that in the end because they wanted Carter out so badly.

[© tweed]

I'm not saying on election day carter had half a chance, but he was still ahead in the polls until a few months before election day.

You point about Carter as a person is what I was saying.  You don't hate him as a person, you hate his policies.

Reagan still only got 50% of the vote in 1980 despite his landslide in the EC.  Some people didn't want either one of them, so Anderson of NAtional Union got 6.6% as a protest candidate.

[dazzleman]

Anderson helped Reagan score a bigger landslide in the electoral vote than he would have in a straight 2-way matchup with Carter.

The most noteworthy example of this is Massachusetts, which was carried by Reagan by a razor-thin margin of about 4,000 votes, if I remember correctly.  If even a small fraction of the Anderson votes had gone to Carter, he would have won Massachusetts.  New York was not as close, but Anderson's vote total was quite a bit larger than Reagan's margin over Carter, so Carter would probably have carried New York in a straight 2-way race.

Even so, Carter still would have lost.  I think Carter meant well, and I even felt sorry for him at times, but I was, and still am, glad he lost in 1980.  I also don't think much of his opinions on current issues, nor do I particularly admire his achievements since leaving office.  I think his free-lance diplomacy has, in some cases, given aid and comfort to dangerous enemies like North Korea.  For someone who claims to care so much about human rights, he seems to have a soft spot for brutal dictators, as long as they are anti-American.

[© tweed]

Well, I don't understand that last sentence, but...

Anderson was the protest vote for people who didn't want another four years of Carter, or Reagan.  Anderson probably Marginally did help Carter.

[dazzleman]

Did you mean to say that Anderson marginally helped Reagan?

[© tweed]

Did you mean to say that Anderson marginally helped Reagan?

Yes, yes...

[7,052,770]

Well, if Anderson had not run and most of his votes went to Carter, Carter would have won the following states, all by close margins:
New York, Massachusetts, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware.
(Note: The total Carter+Anderson votes in Mississippi did in fact surpass Reagan's, but only by a about 300.  Reagan would have gotten enough of the 12000 to win the state.)
This would have made Reagan a 348-190 victor.

[afleitch]

Phew! I can return now the Carter bashing has stopped! Its a shame the UK never became a state, we'd elect more Democrats than you could shake a stick at. Funnily enough only a few years ago in the UK, under the 30 year secrecy rule a government report was leaked showing Prime Minister Wilson had began to pursue Union with the USA! It was the late 1960s, and Europe weren't being too accomodating, and Harold Wilson was worried about Britains future in the international and economic stage. Talks were aborted by the time the EEC application was received, and one negative was the fact that another California sized state would be too large and would have to be split into Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland (depending on its status) and England would be split into around 5 states so it didnt have a cumbersome population but I thought I'd mention it as it just came back to me there.

[opebo]

Phew! I can return now the Carter bashing has stopped! Its a shame the UK never became a state, we'd elect more Democrats than you could shake a stick at. Funnily enough only a few years ago in the UK, under the 30 year secrecy rule a government report was leaked showing Prime Minister Wilson had began to pursue Union with the USA! It was the late 1960s, and Europe weren't being too accomodating, and Harold Wilson was worried about Britains future in the international and economic stage. Talks were aborted by the time the EEC application was received, and one negative was the fact that another California sized state would be too large and would have to be split into Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland (depending on its status) and England would be split into around 5 states so it didnt have a cumbersome population but I thought I'd mention it as it just came back to me there.

This is interesting stuff, though I doubt very much that anything like this was seriously possible.  Other what-ifs might include Phillipine, Cuban or Peurto Rican statehood rather than independence and territorial status.  One thing's for sure - I'm glad the US isn't burdened with a lot more left-wing voters wherever they come from.  Of course this is one reason Republicans alway have and always will resist representation for D.C. and would resist P.R. statehood (not that either is being pushed by anyone).  The whole issue is of course moot if immigration trends towards the left.  

I'm of the school that thinks American exceptionalism and success is entirely based on laissez-faire capitalist ideals (aka freedom), so to me a bigger but more left wing country would actually be weaker.  For example - I would surmise that had the UK become a state or states 35 years ago the US would actually have a smaller GDP now, in spite of being more populous by 60mil.

Final note - one has to bash Carter!  The man is the most shameful ex-president ever, and that's saying something with Clinton still on the loose.

[NHPolitico]

I enjoyed the 'Bush win 92' scenario, so I thought of my own! Looking at the atlas, only a few percent swings in nearly all southern states (plus a few elsewhere) would have seen Carter re-elected. If Carter had won. How would history have panned out? I can see Mondale running in 1984 as he did in reality, but who would the Republicans choose? How would 1988 go? and so on. Have fun.

I think GHWB may have been the nominee. The country would have rejected the Goldwater-Reagan wing and the GOP would have ended that experiment in favor of the Eisenhower-Rockefeller-Ford wing. GHWB was in that latter wing.  It would be a repeat of 1988 in most ways-- a race between GHWB and Bob Dole. It's possible that Rumsfeld would have run, too, in 1984.

[NHPolitico]

Carter winning re-election?  That's so scary i don't want to think about that.  3/4 of the world would probably be communist right now.

We'd all have nice sweaters to wear when we turn down the thermostat, though.

[NHPolitico]

Carter was still up big in the polls until a few months before the election, so this isn't all that unrealistic.

Reagan might still have run 1984, but for only one term because he started to lose it right about then.

I don't think so, really. Reagan would be looked at like Alan Keyes. A good orator who can't be elected president.  He'd run since 1968, though that attempt was half-hearted.

[© tweed]

I don't think so, really. Reagan would be looked at like Alan Keyes. A good orator who can't be elected president.  He'd run since 1968, though that attempt was half-hearted.

Reagan would have had a much better shot than Alan Keyes.  He may have been rejected for his age and past losses, however.