President Carter: I'd Rather Redo the 2000 Election Than the 1980 Election

I interviewed President Carter on The Young Turks this morning. We talked about his new book Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope, his work at the Carter Center and the new group of legendary statesmen he is a part of called "The Elders." How cool is that name, by the way? Who doesn't want to one day be part of The Elders?

We also talked about the current Bush administration. President Carter said this administration has done things that are far more radical than anything that happened in the Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush administrations. He said it wasn't even comparable. You can watch the interview here.

Then I asked him if he could redo the 1980 election where he lost to Reagan or the 2000 election where Al Gore lost to George Bush. He said he would redo the 2000 election because it had such adverse consequences for the country. As always, the man is selfless and classy.

Cenk Uygur: If you had to redo the 1980 election, where Ronald Reagan won, of course up against you, or redo the 2000 election where George Bush defeated Al Gore, which one would you redo?

President Carter: Well knowing what I know now, and knowing the wonderful experiences I've had at the Carter Center in the last 25 years, I would say I would redo the 2000 election. That, you know, I think has had a profoundly adverse effect on our country, and I've had a personal gratifying experience with my wife and many other people at the Carter Center. That in time, that has healed the disappointment that we felt in not getting elected in 1980.

President Carter also understands the gravity of what this administration has done. The biggest mistake the media and the Democrats are making now is thinking that we live in normal times. Normally, you should have civility and comity and moderation and compromise. But if you are dealing with radicals, those are not positive traits. They encourage an abuse of the system. People outside of D.C. can see this, but the D.C. bubble still doesn't seem to get it. President Carter does.

Watch The Young Turks Here

Comments

[daniel155]

I would like to redo the 1976 election.

[BoJaker]

It seems like the Democratic leadership agrees. They'd rather put up a castrated, impotent, take-no-controversial-position candidate and lose by rolling over than put up a candidate with ideas and personality and possibly win (or at least lose with some dignity intact).

[TheQuestion]

When Jimmy Carter speaks I always listen. I think he is an extremely honorable man.

[FoundersFan]

When Jimmy Carter speaks I always listen.
===========================

Me too. It's always hilarious to listen to someone who doesn't have a clue pontificate.

Don't leave Jimmy, it isn't every day we get to listen as a complete, total, unmitigated failure lectures the American people on what to do. Hilarious.

[Alvin4NY]

"complete, total, unmitigated failure" - for a second I thought this was a post on Bush/Cheney or the Iraq war. Talk about your "unmitigated failures..."

[beef33]

I would disagree. No Bush if Carter had won in 1980. That was the turning point. Carter asked us to sacrifice he was selfless he told it like it was. Instead we elected the has been airhead mediocre actor who told us he could cut taxes, increase military spending and balance the budget all at once. Read Morris Berman's book "Dark Ages America". He breaks it all down with that election as the turning point that headed us towards the dark ages. Here we are. Bush against Gore was a wash. Corporate shills the two of them. Now Carter against Reagan. That was good against evil. Selflessness and sacrifice against wanton greed and warmongering. Reality against fantasy. Carter was too good a man to stay in Washington. Good for him he got out but bad for us.

[ceu]

Thank you, Cenk. It was pretty annoying to hear him getting ripped apart on MSNBC this morning for daring to speak out in the BBC America interview. (ex-presidents lose the right to free speech upon leaving office?? I was unaware of that!) All I could think is what a great role model he is....lousy president but a Good man. And we desparately need more Good men (and women) like him!

[Kansas Evans]

Carter is absolutely right about not compromising with radicals!

And I definitely like to see a redo of the 2000 election. Toss Lieberman, and keep election day completely legal, and we got a go!

[ihavenobias]

Interesting interview Cenk.

Some may argue Carter has nothing to lose by saying that (he'd take back 2000, etc), but who can argue he's not right that we'd be MUCH better off?

PS---I loved your writing last week on the US not being a "Christian Nation":

huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/this-is-not-a-christian-n_b_67058.html

[jmpurser]

Thanks. Carter is a class act. I often think of him as the last "good man" to be president.

[Shortyfuse]

Thank you for taking the time to interveiw my favorite president.
I would redo the 1980 election. If only we would have known then what we know now.
Carter saw the rising tide of unrest in the middle east and threw money and resorces into alternate energy. If we would have kept him we would have been very close to weaning ourself from that dependency that the oil and industrial cartels have caused. Just think of all the advances we could make if oil was not driving war.
Since Carter, the Cartels and Fortune 500 have been cleaning our clocks.
AMERICA! WHAT IT COULD HAVE BEEN!
Thank you , Jimmy for giving us a very good comparison.

[ihavenobias]

Carter famously put solar panels on the roof of the White House and Reagan infamously took them down as soon as he took office (how much more stubbornly, symbolically and stupidly regressive could you be?).

More importantly, Reagan immediately dismantled the various pieces of Carter's newly implemented energy plan that would've put the US in position to derive about 20% of its energy from solar power by the year 2000.

Instead, the US now derives 20% of it's energy from (drumroll) nuclear power.

Those facts alone should make any reasonable person cringe and question the Reagan presidency in light of the current dependence on foreign oil (not to mention pollution and global warming, etc).

[steamboat]

He has no choice but to say that. We all know 2000 was controversial. 1980 wasn't. Reagan won in a LANDSLIDE. Because Carter's presidency was an absolute fiasco failure.

[Kansas Evans]

As usual, I disagree with you.

But anyway, I miss ya steamboat! You should see the way I'm getting blasted over semantics. Semantics!

You know how I feel about your commenting style, but you've never blasted me over semantics. For that, you have my respect.

[loslobo]

Ya think those hostages didn't have anything to do with that landslide? Are you sure there wasn't an earlier Iran deal cut before Iran-contra? Those students were soooooo afraid of Ronnie.

[milo9]

You sir are repeating a myth designed to make Reagan much greater than he was by running Carter down.
As an eyewitness, I say much if not all of Carter's problems with a stagnating economy was the result of the Viet Nam war bills coming due.
You will see for yourself how this works to strangle an economy. And we were measurably better off than we are at that point in history.

[steamboat]

I too was alive during the Carter presidency. He was PATHETIC. Unemployment rampant, 20% inflation, gas shortages, and hostages in Iran for 444 days in which he just sat there with a finger up his ass. And that disorganized ill-equiped rescue mission , what a fiasco. I just wish this old man would just shut up.

[wldnswmmr]

Desperate times do call for desperate measures, and unfortunately the main line of current Democratic "opposition" doesn't get that at all. I've watched Nancy Pelosi for most of her political life (living either in or near SF during her Board of Supes days), and it's remarkable to me that the Democratic "seniority" system would elevate a Pacific Heights socialite to take on what amounts to a criminal enterprise. I groaned when her first move was to accept Bush's invitation to "tea" and to "extend the hand of friendship" to the Capo di tutti capi himself. She's way out of her depth, whereas someone like Carter, who worked his way up in the real world of politics from humble beginnings in Georgia knows a fraud when he sees one. I wish the Elders luck. He's a good man and the last practical hope we had for dealing with our soon-to-be-overwhelming problems with global warming and energy shortages.

[Henry]

Right wingers just do not seem to know that it's not polite to "piss on" people.

[Thorn]

Um. Right. Carter's been really classy in that regard.