The Georgian Machiavelli
Jimmy Carter is a public moralist who views truth-telling as the highest obligation of a president.
Surely this can't be the same public moralist who opposed the resume upgrade of a fellow Democratic governor because, as he put it, "I can't sell a Jew in the South"? Certainly this isn't the same smile-and-dagger Jimmy Carter who declaimed Richard M. Nixon's innocence at the height of the Watergate scandal and praised J. Edgar Hoover as a great American. And good golly?no one would ever suspect that this very same righteous Southern Baptist Sunday-school teacher would pledge his unflinching support to one governor, then execute the old dipsy-doodle and back another.
Meet the real Jimmy Carter, the Jimmy Carter behind the smile, the Jimmy Carter who was grudgingly awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Jimmy Carter whom humorist P.J. O'Rourke described as a "pathetic old coot who pounds nails into poor people's houses." His imprimatur as a "public moralist" from a doting Southern historian is decidedly not reflective of his antics as governor of Georgia.
Enter the back rooms of Democratic politics, circa the 1970s, and view Jimmy Carter's weasel factor through the eyes of his peers, the nation's 35 other Democratic governors.
At a late summer caucus in 1971, in the dank precincts of Miami, 36 Democratic governors gathered to elect a chairman of their newly swollen ranks. The unchallenged favorite was Gov. Marvin Mandel of Maryland, at the time one of the country's two Jewish governors.
Welcome to the political arena Georgia's newly minted governor, Jimmy Carter. On the eve of the election, Carter was overheard saying on the phone that he couldn't support Mandel because "I can't sell a Jew in the South."
To cover his broadly exposed butt, Carter engaged in an act of high sedition and low connivance. He endorsed the only other Jewish governor of the moment, Frank Licht of Rhode Island, a quiet and unassuming man who had never entertained the notion of aspiring to the chairmanship and who might have had difficulty delivering his own vote to himself.
But Licht ego-tripped to the idea while Carter feigned an attempt to round up votes, much to the chagrin of the other governors. Ultimately, Licht, seeing the handwriting on the ballots, dropped out. Mandel was elected unanimously, and a lifelong enmity was born between Mandel and Carter that would rumble like a thunderhead through a presidential election and a federal prison sentence.
Fast forward to April of 1973, to the eve of Richard M. Nixon's Watergate speech. The Democratic governors assembled in conference at Lake Huron, OH, a mud flat on the outskirts of Cleveland, to schmooze over policy and navigate party strategy through Watergate and the associated scandals. In attendance was Robert Strauss, then majordomo of the Democratic National Committee and now a Washington uber-lawyer. Strauss was at Lake Huron for one reason: to dissuade the governors from adopting a resolution denouncing Nixon so he, Strauss, could possibly win a financial settlement for the Watergate break-in from the Republican Party.
Carter went Strauss one better by asking the Democratic governors to adopt two resolutions?one expressing confidence in Nixon's innocence and asking Americans to unite behind the President and to pray for him, and another praising FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as a great American. Thus the second face of Carter as the "public moralist."
"Innocent," bellowed Gov. Philip Noel of Rhode Island. "I think he's a goddamned crook. Take your resolution and stuff it."
The Carter resolution incident occurred after 20 of the governors in attendance accidentally discovered, one by one around the conference table, that each of them was being actively investigated by the Nixon Justice Dept. under Attorney General John Mitchell. Mitchell later acknowledged in an affidavit that at one time he had instructed the Justice Dept. to launch investigations against the 20 Democratic governors.
Both Strauss and Carter lost their cases big-time. The Democratic governors hooted Carter out of the meeting room and later adopted the anti-Nixon resolution. The next night Nixon delivered his infamous non-denial denial Watergate speech.
Among his peers, Carter was the most distrusted Democratic governor in the country.
A case in point: In September of 1973, the governor-members of the Southern Governors' Conference gathered for their annual meeting at another waterside resort, in Point Clear, AL. High on their agenda was the selection of a new chairman. At the time, Gov. Reubin Askew, Democrat of Florida, believed that he was in electoral trouble for pushing through a public accommodations law in his state.
Askew felt that the chairmanship of the conference of Southern governors would reaffirm his credentials as a Southerner despite his liberal leanings and his record on civil rights. So he began quietly enlisting the support of his colleagues. Askew's election was virtually assured. Carter was appointed to the largely ceremonial nominating committee that merely rubber-stamped backstage decisions. Carter belied the dictum that good politicians stay bought.
No sooner was Carter appointed than he immediately threw his support elsewhere, to the Texas governor of the moment, Democrat Dolph Briscoe, a stiletto-in-the-back maneuver that infuriated the other governors and ticked off Askew.
So enraged were his colleagues that they drafted a letter of agreement and forced Carter to sign the understanding that he would abide by the nominating committee's recommendation. Again, Askew's enmity for his neighboring-state governor would carry over to the 1976 presidential election. However, Askew later accepted a federal appointment in the Carter administration.
Carter, after serving his mandated single term as governor of Georgia, began his underground campaign for president in 1975 by worming his way into the Democratic National Committee and double-dealing Democratic governors. He began pestering DNC Chairman Strauss to appoint him to a post within the DNC. Strauss finally weakened, and in a sense triggered the unintended consequence of launching Carter's presidential candidacy. Strauss appointed Carter as chairman of a committee raising funds to fertilize the campaigns of Democrats running for Congress. The position enabled Carter to travel to virtually every state in the country?with the cachet and portfolio of the DNC?to establish a personal fundraising network and collect chits for his future presidential campaign.
Next Strauss bestowed upon Carter the title of liaison to the collective of Democratic governors. Among Carter's first actions was to ask each of the Democratic governors for their personal polls so that, as he explained it, he could review the political life-scape in their states. Mandel refused. So much for truth in packaging.
During the February 1976 winter meeting of the National Governors' Conference in Washington, DC, Strauss and Mandel had dinner at the legendary Duke Zeibert's, a period-piece celebrity-table hangout of politicians, lobbyists, athletes and wanna-be-seens.
Over a bowl of matzo ball soup, the bodacious Strauss exuded: "Marvin, Jimmy Carter will never get the presidential nomination. You and I and five or six other governors will decide who the presidential candidate will be."
But after Carter won an early round of primaries, Strauss attempted to establish a Carter blockade in Maryland and New York, two states whose primary elections occurred on the same date. Strauss argued that Carter would be driven from the presidential race if he could be beaten in the two states. Maryland delivered for Strauss, but New York brought home the porkchop for Carter.
The May 1976 presidential primary election in Maryland was an object lesson for Carter and the beginning of a downhill slide as the final round of primaries headed to Western states. Mandel subscribes to rule number one in politics: Don't get mad, get even. So in retaliation for Carter's attempt to block Mandel from the chairmanship of the Democratic governors, Mandel put his well-lubricated Democratic machine to work full force in support of Jerry Brown, handing Carter a humiliating defeat in Maryland.
But in one of those political ju-jitsus, Mandel did exactly what Carter would have done if the roles had been reversed. He offered a resolution, at a July caucus of Democratic governors in Hershey, PA, urging that all Democratic governors bury their finely edged axes and support Carter for president.
But Carter had the last toothy laugh. When Mandel's docket came up for early parole from a federal prison sentence, the paperwork was approved at the regional level in Atlanta but was denied in Washington. It is believed to this day that the denial was accomplished by the fine Machiavellian hand of then-President Jimmy Carter.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Frank A. DeFilippo, press secretary to former Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel, observed Jimmy Carter in back rooms and front rows when Carter was governor of Georgia and a member of various governors' organizations.