Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter had a decades-long friendship and political partnership
When asked what inspiration he would take from how Carter spent his post-presidency, Biden answered, “Never give up hope.”
It was half a century ago when Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter met in Atlanta, at a moment when Biden was just starting his political career as a freshman U.S. senator and Carter was about to ascend to the pinnacle of his.
Biden was in town to deliver a speech, and Carter — then the governor of Georgia — invited Biden to stay at his home.
“He was hardly a national figure, but he confided in me that he was thinking about running for president,” Biden recounted of the encounter in his book “Promises to Keep.” “He had seen plenty of the big Democrats who were talking about running in 1976 and he hadn’t been impressed. He actually asked my advice about running a long-shot campaign.”
» READ MORE: Jimmy Carter, tireless humanitarian admired as model ex-president, has died at 100
Biden would ultimately be the first sitting U.S. senator to endorse Carter, quickly becoming perhaps his most important political ally at a time when many saw Carter’s presidential ambitions as a joke. The young senator was the first major political figure outside of Georgia to back Carter, and he would campaign for him in 30 states during the 1976 election.
It was the start of a decades-long friendship and political partnership, in which the two men clearly saw something of themselves in each other. But at times they would also deliver harsh assessments of what they saw as perceived failings.
“If you’re a friend of Joe Biden’s, you know that friendship is important, and that’s what he had with Carter,” said former Delaware senator Ted Kaufman, a longtime aide to Biden. “They spoke to each other very frankly. When they talked, they could speak to things they were concerned about, in addition to the things they thought were going great. That’s one of the reasons Carter always wanted to help him.”
On Sunday, after hearing of the 39th president’s death, Biden and his wife Jill issued a statement about Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, saying, “We will miss them both dearly,” and citing him as an example of what a public servant should be.
Biden also addressed reporters in St. Croix, where he has been on vacation with his family, speaking of his enduring admiration for Carter. Parts of his statements appeared designed to draw a contrast with what Biden has said in the past about President-elect Donald Trump, though he did not mention his name.
“In today’s world, some may look at Jimmy Carter and see a man of a bygone era — with honesty and character, faith and humility,” Biden said. “But I don’t believe it’s a bygone era. I see a man not only of our times, but for all times. Someone who embodies the most fundamental human values we can never let slip away. … We may never see his like again. But we would all do well to try to be a little more like Jimmy Carter.”
Both Biden and Carter go down as one-term presidents - in fact, Biden, who dropped out of his reelection bid, is the first one-term Democrat since Carter. History has been kind to Carter since, in ways that Biden may hope favor his own presidency in future years.
“I mean that from the bottom of my heart,” he said. “So much negativism out there. I know you’re tired of hearing me say it over the last four years. But, folks, there’s nothing beyond our capacity, nothing beyond our capacity, if we do it together.”
Beyond their personal relationship, which Biden aides said endured in the 40-plus years after Carter left office, their two presidencies in some ways ran on parallel tracks.
Carter, who won election in 1976, took office after Gerald Ford, the vice president of Richard M. Nixon, who resigned under threat of impeachment amid the Watergate scandal in which he appeared to violate numerous laws in targeting political opponents. Carter vowed to restore integrity and normalcy to the Oval Office and to be a leader Americans could trust.
Biden beat Donald Trump, who over four years eviscerated the norms of the presidency, spread baseless conspiracy theories and incited an insurrection shortly before Biden was inaugurated. Biden ran on a promise to “restore the soul of America” and uphold democracy.
“Carter’s the outsider with little Washington experience. Biden’s the opposite of that. But they both were moderates within the party with some national appeal and able to frame their campaigns by the critique of their predecessors,” said Robert Strong, professor of politics at Washington and Lee University.
Both also took office amid a troubled economy and grappled with high energy prices and stubborn inflation. Carter had to manage a gas crisis fueled in part by the Iranian revolution; Biden has had to try to cool gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden was a strong ally of Carter’s while he was in the White House, but he took away hard lessons from his presidency, according to people familiar with his thinking. Biden became frustrated, for instance, that Carter seemed unable or unwilling to delegate to staff and took too long to make decisions about critical policies. Biden also felt Carter had staffers in his inner circle who needed to be replaced.
Still, the two men maintained a friendship after Carter lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan. Biden eventually saw in Carter qualities he later saw in himself.
“At the time I saw Carter as a necessary transitional figure in the Democratic Party, which was losing middle-class working Americans,” Biden wrote. “I thought Carter could bridge gaps in the party. He was a Southerner who was progressive on race. He was talking about balanced budgets. He was committed to the ideals of the War on Poverty, without being blindly for the welfare state.”
But Biden also said he was unimpressed with Carter as a president who had few friends in Washington as he struggled to unite his party’s squabbling factions. The differences with top Democrats that had fueled Carter’s push for the presidency, Biden felt, threatened his ability to govern.
Just before his inauguration, Carter was invited to speak to the Senate Democratic caucus and Biden, his strongest ally, was asked to introduce him.
“As the president-elect and I stood outside in the anteroom waiting to go in together, I was struck by how nervous he appeared,” Biden wrote. “He was bent uneasily forward at the waist, and his hands seemed to be shaking.”
He reminded Biden of his father-in-law on his wedding day.
“His demeanor that day was understandable; it was also sad,” Biden wrote. “Carter didn’t find it easy to forgive and forget, and it rippled through his staff in the White House. They trusted few people in Washington.”
Biden felt he was a conduit between Carter and members of Congress, but his patience began to wear thin. Nine months into Carter’s presidency, Biden spoke before the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce and referred to his so-called political ally with biting sarcasm.
“Nixon had his enemies list and President Carter has his friends list. I guess I’m on his friends list, and I don’t know which is worse,” he said in October 1977, according to the Wilmington News Journal.
“They got to Washington and didn’t know how Washington worked,” he said of Carter’s team. “The president is learning, but not fast enough.”
Carter attended a fundraiser in Delaware for Biden a short time later. In reference to the friction, he called Biden “independent almost to a fault.”
Biden later wrote that Carter had a way of making him feel like he couldn’t be trusted and didn’t cater to him even though he’d gone out on a limb with his early endorsement. “When I went to the White House for a meeting, I was lucky to get ten minutes,” Biden recounted. “And in the meetings, I could see him roll his arm (he wore his watch with the face on the underside) tug at his cardigan sweater, and check the time.”
He determined Carter wasn’t good at listening to advice and kept to his tight inner circle, not nurturing new relationships.
“Jimmy Carter was a man of decency and a man of principle, but it wasn’t enough,” Biden wrote in a biting conclusion. “That’s the first time I realized that on-the-job training for a president can be a dangerous thing.”
But in January 1978, Biden met with Carter at the White House, according to Carter’s diaries that he published in 2010.
Biden told him that his staff needed to spend more time with members of Congress. He said the Jewish community had a deep distrust of him because of his Baptist faith. He then warned him that Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was secretly plotting a primary campaign against him.
“Joe’s report proved to be quite accurate,” Carter wrote. “This was the first indication I had about Kennedy’s presidential plans, but they were soon to become more evident as he marshaled opposition to many of my proposals.”
Biden was also approached by a group of allies and urged to consider running. They made the case that Carter and Kennedy would so damage each other in the primary that Biden could emerge as a compromise candidate. He didn’t end up running.