Get Carter
Greg Sargent comments on a Rasmussen poll about former presidents:
Carter edges both Bushes by double-digits. The poll was taken last month, well before Carter’s race remark the other day. But the numbers are noteworthy, because even before this week, Carter has generally been assumed by some Dems to be terrifyingly controversial, largely because of his writings on the Middle East.
With the focus on the Mideast heating up again, Carter will likely be making more news, and the Obama administration will likely be distancing itself from him again, as it did yesterday. Worth recalling that the public doesn’t take all that dim a view of the stuff he’s done since leaving the White House.
Yes and no. The problem is that this poll result is perfectly consistent with 55 percent of the public thinking that Carter is history’s greatest monster. He’s clearly done more—and more controversial—stuff than any other ex-president. So it’s easy to imagine him being both the most liked and the most disliked. What’s more, there’s the whole question of preference intensity. Most Americans, according to surveys I’ve seen, have perfectly reasonable views about the Middle East. But the people who care most about the Israeli-Arab conflict tend to be the people with the least-reasonable views—Christian Zionists and the Jewish right.
23 Responses to “Get Carter”
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September 17th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Don’t question this, Matt, at least not in public. This is exactly the sort of poll result you can use to annoy conservatives, which is fun.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Carter is unquestionably the greatest ex-president of the last 40 years. His time in office, however….
September 17th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
You write that the Christian Zionists and right-wing Jews are most passionate and least reasonable (whatever that might mean) on the Israel issue. Why did you not include Arab-Americans in that list, as well? They also fit the bill as having preference intensity, and they care a lot about the Middle East, as well. Are they also “people who care most about the Israeli-Arab conflict [who] tend to be the people with the least-reasonable views”? Why were they excluded?
September 17th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Yes, but most Arab Americans with strong views on the Middle East and Israel are not on TV every Sunday bloviating about them.
Also, Arab Americans are a much smaller set than Christian Zionists and Right-Wing Jews…mostly Christian Zionists.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Instead of “Not sure” they should’ve had “Fuck ‘em all”. That would’ve been a sure winner.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
How stupid do you have to be to vote for W in this poll? He hasn’t even done anything since leaving office *8 months ago*. We are a nation of idiots.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Hey, not being President anymore is an undeniably great thing that George W Bush has been doing every single day for the last eight months. Let’s not denigrate that accomplishment in any way.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Then, one must also bear in mind the effect of time. Jimmy Carter has had a lot more time to be ex-president than George W. Bush — about 40 times as long. That doesn’t account for George H. W. Bush’s unpopularity vis Bill Clinton, though.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Most Americans won’t ever meet an Arab American, and I’d wager that not every single Arab cares that much about Palestine and a lot of them probably have mainstream (in the sense of people actually having them, not televised) views.
A lot of people don’t care about politics, don’t lump every person of Arab descent and say “Arabs iz crazy”! It doesn’t exactly make your case.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I think there’s a strong argument that this is a vast improvement.
Also: I wonder to what extent people really think about this sort of thing.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
When it was broken down by party, Carter got 22% of Republicans and 33% of independents.
Maybe I’m just betraying my ignorance here, but I’m not sure that Carter’s work in the 80s and 90s was seen as controversial as some of his stuff today
September 17th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I thought it was an article of faith among Yglesias commentors not to believe Rasmussen polls?
September 17th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Carter is hated by wingnuts and neocons (some overlap but not at all identical groups), adored by foreign policy progressives, and faintly admired by the vast majority who don’t have strong opinions of him either way mainly due to his founding of Habitat for Humanity.
Which, incidentally, suggests a path to atonement for George W. Bush: work like the dickens on a non-controversial cause. Though maybe Bush feels like he doesn’t have shit he needs to atone for. And he’ll always have his 25-percenters even if he is unrepentant.
September 17th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I thought it was an article of faith among Yglesias commentors not to believe Rasmussen polls?
Only their web polls, Nate Silver found their other polls to be fairly reliable, and if you’d read the article you’d see this is a telephone survey. And the question doesn’t look like an obvious push poll, does it?
September 17th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Reminds me of polls showing that Howard Cossell was simultaneously the best-like and most-hated sportscaster in America.
Matt, don’t tell me you don’t remember Howard Cossell. I feel old enough today.
September 17th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
He’s clearly done more—and more controversial—stuff than any other ex-president in living memory. Taft became Chief Justice and devoted his life to rolling back progressive causes. Teddy Roosevelt handed the Presidency to Woodrow Wilson out of spite. And Grover Cleveland, after his term as President, went on to become…the President of the United States.
September 17th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
…faintly admired by the vast majority who don’t have strong opinions of him either way mainly due to his founding of Habitat for Humanity.
Millard and Linda Fuller were the founders of Habitat. Carter is simply the organization’s most famous patron/champion.
September 17th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
…to vote for W in this poll? He hasn’t even done anything since leaving office *8 months ago*.
I heard he’s been doing a lot of mountain biking.
September 17th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
My view on Carter:
He simply came into Washington with the wrong kind of attitude and clashed with Kennedy and congress, a president can’t do anything if their party (who is in control of congress) isn’t going to work with him (a lesson for Obama?). Plus there were the multiple crisis’ that got put into his lap. Possibly the guy was just to nice to make it for Washington and deal with all of the things that happened during his presidency?
On the level of a moral person as President compared to past and successive presidents, he’s probably the most moral and forthright person to be president since Lincoln, period. People who bash him a weakling or failure should be ashamed.
September 17th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Grover Cleveland once spanked me on two non-consecutive occasions.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Even Bin Laden knows that if America follows the principles in Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace or Apartheid” then the terrorists will lose.
So he promptly endorsed the book knowing that by promoting it, it will become unpopular.
September 18th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Great graphic, zero meaning.
Quick: Name the last ten US presidents. Extra credit: Describe each in one sentence.
An earlier graph from Oklahoma showed only twenty percent could identify George Washington as our first president?!?
It stands to reason that Dubya got nine percent because he’s the only past president respondents could remember. His dad got twenty percent because they confused the names.
We should add a coda: Reagan received a nil rating. Ha, Ha, no dime for you! People grow up; sorry you didn’t.
As with their college review, this seems a topic The Atlantic could do contemporaneously: Who has generated the most positive press (Carter); who has generated the most money for causes (Clinton); who has generated the most personal income (Bush 1), who has raised more political funds (Reagan); who is most toxic and reviled (Duh. Whoops, I meant Dubya)? Who gets more than one paragraph fifty years (ten presidents) from now? Name them.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Last 10 U.S. presidents: 1. George W. Bush, least qualified and worst president in American history; 2. William J. Clinton, breathtakingly intelligent narcissist; 3. George H.W. Bush, genuine war hero with wimp complex; 4. Ronald W. Reagan, amazingly uncomplicated human being; 5. James Earl Carter, easily the most moral president of my lifetime but too often politically tone deaf; 6. Richard Nixon, brilliant man undone by his paranoia; 7. Lyndon B. Johnson, politically astute crook; 8. John F. Kennedy, visionary; 9. Dwight D. Eisenhower, father of the interstate highway system and best Republican president of my lifetime, 10. Harry S Truman, nuking Nagasaki was as functional as his middle initial.