Jimmy Carter, trounced in 1980, gets fresh look from history

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August 19th, 2021

In this Nov. 2, 2015, file photo, former President Jimmy Carter works at a Habitat for Humanity building site in Memphis, Tenn. Carter is sometimes called a better former president than he was president. The backhanded compliment has always rankled Carter allies and, they say, the former president himself. Yet now, 40 years removed from the White House, the most famous resident of Plains, Georgia, is riding a new wave of attention as biographers, filmmakers, climate activists and Carter’s fellow Democrats push for a recasting of his presidential legacy.

Mark Humphrey / AP Photo

Jimmy Carter is sometimes called a better former president than he was president.

Nodding to Carter’s decades of work as a globe-trotting humanitarian but with a glaring reminder of his landslide defeat in 1980, the backhanded compliment rankles Carter allies and, they say, the former president himself.

Yet now, 40 years removed from the White House, the most famous resident of Plains, Georgia, is riding a new wave of attention as biographers, filmmakers, climate activists and Carter’s fellow Democrats push to recast his presidential legacy, even as Republicans sometimes try to remind voters of the volatile economy and international affairs that doomed Carter to one term.

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