MPR News Feature; Governor Jimmy Carter and the complex road of running for national office

I would never ask anybody in my entire political career to endorse me. I think in general it's counterproductive. My own style of campaigning. For the Georgia State Senate in four. Governorships twice. Has been to go directly to the vote to avoid any sort of dependence on big shot politicians even if they were very popular. And to create an accurate impression in the minds of the voter that there was no. Intermediary between me and them. This is another question in connection with your status as a newcomer right now that same Nation article if I remember started out saying that you had three strikes against you and that was Georgia under financing and OK lack of political experience. Does that strike you as being very fair or very accurate. Well I think you have a newcomer to the national political scene does have. You know three strikes against them the. Lack of political experience. On the financing and whatever one's origins might have been coming from two largest city two

smaller state and so forth. I ran the national campaign effort last year. I work with more than 1000 candidates who ran for Congress govern the US Senate. I've been in every state in the nation the last two years except three. Month tenant and the two Dakotas. We're meeting our budget. We have a $650000 budget this year we've raised more than half of it already. We've had 5000 contributions. That average about $70. So we're doing well on the financing. And I don't think it's a handicap. To be from Georgia ought to be from Minnesota to be from any other single state I believe the time for sectional prejudice in this country is over quite often in the past we have had a prejudice against people because of their being black or white or from the south or from an author of being Catholic or Protestant or Jewish. I remember when John Kennedy began to run 15 years ago. A lot of people said he couldn't do anything in Georgia because he was from New England he was very liberal he was

Catholic judges mostly Protestant. But when the returns came in in 1060 John Kennedy got his biggest margin of victory not in Massachusetts but in Georgia. And I think that if we. In the south have been ever able to overcome our prejudice. Against. New Englanders who are liberal and who are Catholic and against the. People who might have been black I believe the rest of the country can overcome its prejudice against me because I have to be from the south. How is your stomach for presidential campaigning. How do you like it. I like it. This is my. Six month full time campaigning. I have scheduled in 175 250 days to campaign outside of Georgia. And I've already been in as I said this year. Forty two different states to campaign. And so far I'm getting along fine. I enjoy it. I've learned a lot about this country. Although I'm a farmer I've learned a lot about agriculture.

Although I am a scientist I learn a lot about energy and transportation matters. I'm an engineer I've learned a lot about engineering have been in politics a good bit. I don't an awful lot about politics. It's been said by so many people that our presidential campaign process is a very grueling and very unnecessary experience perhaps if you're learning so much it's a good training ground for being president. I like that testing. I'll be in 30 to 35 primaries. And I'm working at least five and a half days a week outside my own state this whole year. And I'm thankful for it. I want my own character to be tested. In the most of the a possible way. And if I can measure up to what the American people want our nation to be. As exemplified by the president then I'll be elected if I can't measure up. To those standards and I hope the stands are very high. I don't deserve to be president. So I think the testing of a candidate is a very good ordeal.

To go through. And for me it's a pleasant experience. Now suppose by some quirk of fate you do lose. How do you expect this experience to affect future political plans. I don't know I've got a good life at home with my wife and I live in the same town home. We were both born. Poor people and my people have lived in a town to 38 hundreds. The town has a total population of five hundred eighty three. All our relatives are there. And I've got a good life as a farmer as a seed producer. So whether or not I'm in politics after this. Next camp this campaign and he's eight years as president or as a defeated candidate. I have a good life to go back to. So I don't have any qualms about that in the future I think though that I will win.