Jimmy Carter - Why Not the Best?: The First Fifty Years

Tell me the landscape in which you live, and I will tell you who you are.

Jos Ortega Gassett

In late 1974 when Georgia governor Jimmy Carters presidential ambitions were not taken seriously by the national media, he began writing a campaign autobiography that was instrumental in helping him capture the White House. With nearly one million copies eventually sold, Why Not the Best? convinced many skeptics that this eighth-generation Georgian was the best candidate to lead America into its third century. To a public still coming to terms with the Vietnam War and Watergate, Carters soothing memoir was a welcome affirmation of one candidates bedrock faith in old-fashioned public service based on duty, honor, competence, and honesty. Anyone who read Carters personal history could not fail to be moved by the images he painted of his idyllic childhood in remote Plains, his hazing incident at Annapolis for refusing to sing Marching through Georgia, his near-death experience aboard a Pacific-fleet submarine and his born-again religious experience, the compassionate humor of his mother, Miss Lillian, and the stern taskmaster ethics of his father, Mr. Earl. In compelling yet humble language, Why Not the Best? introduced the world to the remarkable talents and ambitious humanity of Jimmy Carter.

The idea of writing a campaign autobiography was first presented to Jimmy Carter by his twenty-seven-year-old political strategist Hamilton Jordan in a prophetic seventy-page memorandum dated November 4, 1972, the day before Richard Nixons landslide victory over George McGovern in the presidential election. The memo, Carters game plan to win the presidential nomination in 1976, included the arduous task of writing a memoir tointroduce himself to the voters. It seems not to have occurred to him that most candidates let others celebrate them, Gary Wills wrote about the book in an otherwise favorable Atlantic profile. But Jimmy Carter was not like most candidatesit was his unorthodox approach to politics that made him so appealing in the first place.

Unlike other presidential autobiographies, Why Not the Best? was written entirely by Carter, with some editorial assistance provided by Hal Gulliver, the associate editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Carter had read James David Barbers book Presidential Character (1972), from which he learned that a politicians style and purpose are expressed most truthfully in the early chapters of an autobiography: the lessons retained from youth. Carter knew that in this regard his rural Plains upbringing, peanut-farmer existence, distinguished naval career, and New South business perspective could set him apart from the Washington-style Democratic contenders. He was the rare politician, one without a single skeleton in his closet. So what if he was the proverbial outsider, never having fought in the political trenches along with other national Democrats in the great battles of the erathe Vietnam War, Medicaid and Medicare, civil-rights legislation, Nixons Supreme Court appointments, Watergate. This could be an asset, not a liability. The best politics is to do the best job yourself, Carter would note. And I put my best foot forward when writing Why Not the Best?

Throughout the late summer of 1974 Governor Carter shopped his book idea around to publishing firms to no avail. Unsure of how next to proceed he asked Hal Gulliver for tactical help. A short (1100 pg.) well-written book that you obviously wrote is worth much more (both to you and a publisher) than will be some extensive book that sounds like it was written by staff or other writers, Gulliver advised. With still no bites, Carter used his considerable pull as a member of the Southern Baptists Brotherhood Commission to cut a deal with Broadman Press in Nashville, with whom he had planned to write an evangelical tract. (Broadman Press was an inspirational literature house, dealing strictly in books, audiovisuals, and music celebrating the life of Jesus Christ.)

A straightforward autobiography about Jimmy Carters multifacetedlife, Gulliver insisted, was what the voting public would want to read. A religious book marketed solely to Americas twenty million Baptists would not have a broad enough appeal for a serious presidential candidate, especially one with low name recognition. Eventually abandoning the notion of writing both books at once, Carter went with Gullivers editorial instinct and began the autobiography. He made it clear from the outset, however, that spiritual themes would pervade his memoir, since praying was, as he once put it, like breathing to me. Broadman Press assigned Joe Jackson to be Carters editor, a born-again book novice who would eventually sign his correspondence to the one-term governor with All the BEST to you and Rosalynn.

Hal Gulliver, writing for the