When a first-term Democratic president struggles, people talk about Jimmy Carter

  WBUR

"President Biden, like any second-year occupant in the Oval Office, does not much like the phrase "one-term president."

"As a Democrat, he presumably does not enjoy the comparison some are making between him and Jimmy Carter, the only Democratic president since the 1800s that the voters sent packing after just four years.

"But that comparison is, as they say, out there. And as the White House ponders staff moves in the months ahead, it knows it needs to address the dread "Carter model."

"To be fair, Carter's ill-fated presidency occurred during extraordinarily difficult times, beset by numerous global crises and dogged by economic conditions he largely inherited from his predecessor. Biden's defenders might say the same.

"We should also note that Carter, at 97, is the longest living president ever and has long since rewritten his legacy with decades of humanitarian work at home and abroad. Overwhelming majorities of Americans approve of his performance since leaving office and polls show the public's assessment of his years in office has risen as well. Presidential scholars generally rate him in the middle ranks of U.S. presidents.

"Yet Carter remains a punchline in American politics, scarcely acknowledged at his party's national political conventions and rarely listened to in policy debates. That is because when he left office four decades ago, Carter was down to 34% approval in the Gallup Poll and lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980 by a landslide in the Electoral College.

"Not just another election, 1980 signaled a sea change in American politics. A half century of the New Deal and Democratic domination gave way to an era in which Republicans more than held their own, winning the Electoral College in six of the next 11 cycles and controlling at least one chamber of Congress two-thirds of the time.

"Carter also left a legacy of frustration and fecklessness that has been difficult for Democrats to shake. He is remembered for the Iran hostage crisis that consumed the last year of his presidency. He is remembered for his hapless struggles against inflation, high gas prices and the threat of oncoming recession — not to mention an aggressive Russian war machine invading a neighboring country in defiance of the world community.". . .