The 1970's was a difficult time period in American history filled with chaos, domestic and international crises, and very poor presidential leadership. Richard Nixon was president during the early years of the seventies and he was far from popular in the eyes of the American people. With inflation rapidly rising, Nixon soon became unfavorable, and with the controversy surrounding his actions concerning the Watergate Crisis, he was impeached and forced to resign. His Vice President, Gerald R. Ford, soon took his place in the White House. However, Ford was unable to handle the crippling events taking place in the United States; his approval dropped drastically within months, and like Nixon he lost support of the American people. When the 1976 presidential election came around, the American people needed a new hero whom they could trust and who could pull the nation out of its current state of misery. To fill this position, American chose to elect James Earl Carter, Jr., Governor from Georgia. Jimmy Carter began his presidency in the bright glow of public support built on his promise of bringing honesty and morality back to politics; but unable to successfully deal with conflicts beyond his control concerning domestic and foreign affairs, his term as President ended behind a dark cloud of public disapproval.
Jimmy Carter entered the White House in 1977 with the bright glow of public support from the American people, stemming from his outspoken and admiring charisma. He was seen as the hero who could bring the nation out of disparity and restore it back to its golden years. He guaranteed that his government "would be filled with love as are the American People" (qtd. in Slavin 58). Carter characterized himself as honest and aggressi...
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... in their once loved hero. They no longer saw him as the man who could cure the country's problems and restore the nation back to its golden years.
In the 1980 presidential election, Carter faced even more trouble when the Democratic party became divided. Senator Ted Kennedy, member of the Democratic liberal wing, stole much of the democratic support away from Carter; although Jimmy won the Democratic primary, he had lost much needed democratic support and faced a major disadvantage heading into the election ("Election of 1980" 1). Not surprisingly, the dissatisfied voters did not reelect him for a second term, and many openly expressed their dissatisfaction with his handling of domestic and foreign affairs ("Outline of American History" 3). Ronald Reagan won the election, and Carter was forced to head back to Georgia behind a dark cloud of public disapproval.
At the time of Jimmy Carter's presidency, he was often perceived as an unsatisfactory president, but today is associated with some of the exceptional ex-presidents. His accomplishments drew interest from the Nobel Committee, who would ultimately award him the Nobel Peace Prize. Jimmy Carter’s background, actions, and legacy, assisted him in winning the prestigious award.
On January 20, 1969 our 37th president, Richard Milhous Nixon, was sworn into Presidency. His main focus as president was to pull forces out of Vietnam in order to end the War that began in 1961. Nixon began this process by pulling 75,000 troops out of Vietnam in the first year he was president. Nixon also worked to improve US relations with China as well as with the Soviet Union. He was the first president to visit China. He also imposed a wage price freeze to combat inflation that was replaced by a system of wage price controls, to be later removed. Nixon?s term as President will forever be remembered due to his resignation from presidency over the Watergate scandal.
The election of 1980 brought the re-nominated Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter, against the newly nominated Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan. While Carter ran a rather “gloom and doom” campaign, Reagan came into the election upbeat and with high hopes of rebuilding the military. Americans, weary of the liberal government, elected Ronald Reagan. Reagan came into the Presidency wanting to restore United States leadership in world affairs w...
Carter is decidedly recollected, be that as it may, for the noteworthy 1978 Camp David Accords, where he intervened a memorable peace understanding between Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat. This key summit resuscitated a long-lethargic routine of presidential peacemaking, something each succeeding CEO has copied to shifting degrees. In any case, due to saw shortcomings as a residential and
Nixon although considered one of the most controversial politicians used his political experience, his background and the communist scare of the late forties and early fifties to become President. It took Nixon about four years but eventually he put an end to the Vietnam War. He promised the American people that when he took office his highest priority would be putting an end to the horrible war. He did what he promised and deserves credit for that. Although things did not always work out for him he came back from the events a smarter man. He used his knowledge to win the election. It takes a smart man to learn from his mistakes and Nixon did that. That is why he deserved to be President of the United States.
http://www.cartercenter.org/news/experts/jimmy_carter.html, Revised 2/22/2011 by Steven H. Hochman, © 2011 The Carter Center. All Rights Reserved, accessed May 23, 2011
His extreme effectiveness feeds from decision-making ability that turned the country away from the negative and instable foreign policy of Carter and back to support winning the Cold War and promoting the strength of the US. In the 1970s, because Carter allowed Communism to gain military and territorial advantages, and failed to impose American hegemon and his own power as President. Reagan took office in 1981, “he was determined to rebuild that power, regain for the United States the capability to wage war successfully against the Soviets, to act with impunity against Soviet Third World clients, and to regain its status as the world’s dominant military force.” Reagan handled the Iran hostage Crisis within the hour of assuming the Presidency. Simultaneously, doing what was necessary to free Americans, and to use his power as President to go outside the constitution and congress and secure funding for the Contras to overthrown the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and restore the nation to a pro-American government. Unlike Carter Reagan wanted to make it clear he only cared about protecting American security, and that human rights could be an after
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the United States was experiencing disorder and hysteria as domestic and foreign issues; created stress and tension within the nation. In the late 1960s, when Richard Nixon was running for president, the nation saw the death of two influential people, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, brother of John F. Kennedy. Following the death of King, race riots broke out across the country. To add to the anger and tension, many students and young Americans began to protest the war in Vietnam. Nixon promised to restore order to the country if he were to be elected. Unfortunately for Nixon, the Democrats, who had control of both sides of Congress, were prepared to block many of Nixon’s initiatives. Thus, CREEP (the committee to re-elect the president) began its corrupt path towards getting Nixon into office, even going as far as to break into the Democratic Party's National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate office in the nation’s capital ("Watergate: The Scandal That Brought Down Richard Nixon"). The Watergate scandal, which led to the first resignation of a United States President, changed the political landscape of the nation through its impact on Americans' trust in the government and its employees, its effect on government ethics, and its influence on journalism and the rise in investigative reporting.
However , this was not to be and President Clinton turned near defeat in to a resounding victory, with the help of former president and skilled negotiator, Jimmy Carter.
In 1976 Jimmy Carter, a small peanut farmer from Georgia was elected the President of the United Sates. Carter had limited experience in the National Political Arena. He used his inexperience to his advantage and promised to restore honesty and morality to the government. After the corruption that the United States had seen within the previous administrations of Nixon and Ford, Carter was welcomed with open arms. During his presidency Carter was faced with a plethora of domestic and foreign issues. At home, economic problems dominated causing massive unemployment and inflation. Oil shortages also presented a challenge. Domestically, Carter’s policies were a failure, with no success in alleviating the economy or the oil crisis. In the Middle East as series of conflicts between Egypt and Israel resulted in peace talks and with the Presidents’ mediation they were successful. However, Carter was not completely successful abroad. In Iran Carter was ineffective in procuring a quick solution and as a result lost public support. While Carter was successful in dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict, he was disastrous in his domestic economic policy and his other foreign diplomatic endeavors; ultimately his successes paled in comparison to his failures.
Lasky, Victor. (1979). Jimmy Carter the Man & the Myth. New York: Richard Marek Publishers
There were many problems in which Carter had been blamed for, especially the Iran hostage crisis which proved to be very humiliating. He failed to deal with any of these situations. Either as hesitant or ineffective is how many Americans viewed Carter. He also had attacked Reagan as a dangerous radical after he defeated Tom Kennedy for the nomination. For his part Reagan, the charismatic ex-Governor of California, repeatedly made fun of Carter's powerlessness , and won a landside victory that carried the United States Senate for the first time in 28 years. Reagan's victory marked the beginning of the "Reagan Revolution."
The years leading up to the 1972 election were filled with new political tactics. Going into the election year, President Nixon seemed like he could never lose the second term election after successfully negotiating with Vietnam, Beijing, and Russia to improve international relations (Emery 4). Raising international toughness made Nixon seem like the most worthy person to stay president. Fred Emery analyses in his novel Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon, the president was also setting up the first summit meeting in history with Soviet Union Presidents (3). There seemed to be nothing capable of holding the seemingly responsible man back. However, this assurance came with massive consequences. The absolute certainty that Nixon would be reelected fueled the lies and abuse of power by the Nixon government (Emery 195). As the outlook of landslide winnings took over the White House, the moral reasoning, “the end justifies the means” became more prevalent. Nixon was obsessed with winning and being successful. Under his command his staff did whatever possible to ...
The election of 1972 was one of the largest landslide victories by a presidential candidate in United States history. President Nixon was reelected to the presidency by beating Senator George McGovern of South Dakota in an impressive victory. The Nixon landslide victory tied FDR’s 60.8 percent of the popular vote in 1936 for the second largest popular vote get in American history. Nixon’s 60.8 percent of the vote compared to McGovern’s 37.6 percent, a difference of 23.2 percent, was also the fourth largest margin of victory in a presidential election in United States History. Nixon not only won with an impressive popular vote margin, but he also won 49 of the 50 states’ electoral votes amounting to 520, while McGovern only received 17 electoral votes. He only won Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. The Nixon landslide victory cannot necceasarily be attributed to Nixon’s policy beliefs, but there are a number of factors which gave Nixon his impressive win. A possible realignment among the American electorate, McGovern being seen as having few leadership capabilities, along with McGovern’s possible failure to get his political message out to the American electorate, and a divide within the Democratic Party are all possible explanations for the Nixon landslide win.
Many historians view Carter’s term as president infective due to his way of dealing with the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan.