“Jimmy Carter’s grandson runs on nostalgia for Carter years…”, notes Matt Drudge, linking to this Politico story on Carter’s grandson running for the governorship of Georgia, via a deliciously ironic headline:
But despite growing Hispanic- and African-American populations in Georgia — demographic trends that have rekindled Democratic hopes of a political revival there — the state is still solid GOP terrain. And for many conservatives “Carter” is shorthand for failed liberalism and weak leadership.
Deal’s campaign has already made clear it intends to hang the “liberal” anchor on the grandson’s neck, saying that the potential matchup could be, in part, a “referendum on President Carter’s administration.”
And the ironic scare quotes that the leftwing Politico feels necessary to insert around the word “liberal” is reminder of just how toxic the failed Carter administration made the L-word, and that its radioactive half-life continues to this very day. Not the least of which, because of Mr. Carter’s equally disastrous successor in the White House. (See T-shirt at top of post.)
Of course, if there is any “nostalgia for the Carter years,” as Matt Drudge ironically posits, it’s only because, as Glenn Reynolds warned throughout Mr. Obama’s first term, “at this point a Carter rerun is a best-case scenario.”
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