Former President Jimmy Carter, an ally of longtime Detroit Mayor Coleman Young who helped rescue Chrysler with a first federal loan 45 years ago, died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia.
Jimmy Carter was 100 and the oldest living president of all time. Michigan officeholders, including U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, remembered Carter as a humble political figure who put the teachings of his Christian faith into action.
“Thank you President Carter for showing all of us what it means to lead with your values both in and out of public service,” Stabenow wrote on social media. “You showed us what ‘faith and works’ really mean.”
Carter served one four-year term in the White House after winning the 1976 election over President Gerald Ford, a Republican who is the only Michigan resident to serve as president. The former Georgia governor was the last Democrat to capture the White House without winning Michigan. He also was the first Democratic president since 1888 not to win reelection before President Joe Biden chose to abandon his reelection bid this summer.
Carter and Ford became good friends after they both left office, with Carter saying at Ford’s funeral in 2007 that they shared leadership responsibilities on 25 projects.
“One of my proudest moments was at the commemoration of the 200th birthday of the White House, when two noted historians both declared that the Ford-Carter friendship was the most intensely personal between any two presidents in history,” Carter said 18 years ago at Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids.
Carter entered in-home hospice care on Feb. 18, 2023, “instead of additional medical intervention” after a series of stints in a hospital, according to a statement from the Carter Center, the charity the former president formed for his global advocacy work on human rights, democracy and public health in the four decades since he was the nation’s 39th president.
Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, died at age 96 in November 2023.
More:Fond remembrances for Jimmy Carter after entering hospice
His son Chip Carter told the Associated Press in mid-October, “I asked him two months ago if he was trying to live to be 100, and he said, ‘No, I’m trying to live to vote for Kamala Harris.'”
Carter lived long enough to cast his ballot by mail for Democratic presidential nominee Harris, but she lost Georgia, Michigan and the presidency to Republican Donald Trump.
Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with an intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s.
More:How Jimmy Carter helped build 4,390 homes with Habitat for Humanity
In the decades since he left the White House, Carter used his own hammer and tool belt to help build, renovate or repair 4,390 homes in 14 countries for Habitat for Humanity, the organization said.
“My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said.
A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia.
“If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Ford, who had lost popularity pardoning Nixon.
Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights and America’s global role. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Middle East peace deal that he brokered between Egypt and Israel by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978. That Camp David experience inspired the post-presidential center where Carter would establish so much of his legacy.
Yet Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, gasoline lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan.
More:11 facts about Jimmy Carter that may surprise you
Carter acknowledged in his 2020 “White House Diary” that he could be “micromanaging” and “excessively autocratic,” complicating dealings with Congress and the federal bureaucracy. He also turned a cold shoulder to Washington’s news media and lobbyists, not fully appreciating their influence on his political fortunes.
“It didn’t take us long to realize that the underestimation existed, but by that time, we were not able to repair the mistake,” Carter told historians in 1982, suggesting that he had “an inherent incompatibility” with Washington insiders.
Carter insisted his overall approach was sound and that he achieved his primary objectives — to “protect our nation’s security and interests peacefully” and “enhance human rights here and abroad” — even if he fell short of a second term.
Former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard cited the 1980 financial rescue of the struggling Chrysler Corp. as one of Carter’s key accomplishments for Michigan. The then-Highland Park-based automaker was hemorrhaging cash, an estimated $1.5 billion in combined losses for 1979 and 1980.
At the time, Chrysler was the largest employer in Detroit but was on the verge of bankruptcy, Blanchard said. Carter signed the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act on Jan. 7, 1980, providing $1.5 billion in loan guarantees and rescuing the company, which paid back the loan.
Chrysler ended up filing for bankruptcy nearly 30 years later, in 2009, after the federal government supplied the automaker with $12.5 billion in loan subsidies. The government owned a stake in the Auburn Hills automaker, which exited bankruptcy and was bought by Italy’s Fiat in 2009. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV repaid the loans in 2011 and was later renamed Stellantis.
Despite the 1980 boost to the domestic auto industry, Carter lost Michigan to former California Gov. Reagan 49% to 42.5%, with independent former Illinois U.S. Rep. John Anderson winning 7% of the vote.
Blanchard, a Democratic member of the U.S. House at the time, worked on the policy with Carter and said it eventually helped catapult him into the Governor’s Office three years later in 1983.
Detroit Mayor Young had a friendship with Carter that resulted in federal loans and grants getting funneled to Detroit, Michigan’s largest city and a Democratic stronghold. It spurred the building of the Detroit People Mover, which debuted in July 1987. The People Mover was supposed to prompt development around its 2.9-mile elevated circular course but never really did.
Carter won the 1976 election after Ford made the controversial decision in 1975 to pardon Nixon over the Watergate scandal, but lost Michigan 52%-46% to the Michiganian.
Unlike the partisan rancor of modern times, Carter noted in Ford’s 2007 eulogy that he and Ford took pains to refer to each other on the 1976 campaign trail as “my distinguished opponent.”
Their friendship was sealed when they both attended the 1981 funeral of assassinated Egyptian leader Sadat, who along with Israel’s leader Begin agreed to the 1979 Camp David Accords, negotiated by Carter, that stabilized the previously fractious relationship between the two Middle East countries.
“Our mutual respect, which I have described, blossomed into a valued personal friendship during our shared trip to attend the funeral of President Anwar Sadat in Egypt,” Carter said at Ford’s funeral. “We formed a personal bond while lamenting on the difficulty of unexpectedly defeated candidates trying to raise money to build presidential libraries.”
Despite his single term in office, Michigan’s elected officials on Sunday noted the enduring qualities that formed Carter’s legacy.
In a statement Sunday, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, said Carter’s legacy was “one of tireless work, selflessness, and service to his nation and neighbors.”
“When Jimmy Carter won the presidency, he sought to unite Americans and heal a fractured country,” Dingell added. “The effects of his advocacy on issues including environmentalism, conservation, and human rights can still be felt today.”
U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Caledonia, said Carter sought to humbly serve others.
“After his presidency, he and his wife, Rosalynn, helped build Habitat for Humanity into what it is today,” Moolenaar said. “Together, the Carters demonstrated 77 years of enduring love and steadfast marriage to one another.”
Carter was accommodating before he became president, said Blanchard, the former Michigan governor.
When Blanchard first ran for the U.S. House in 1974, Republican U.S. Rep. Robert Huber received free airtime on a local radio station, Blanchard said. Under federal law at the time, the Democratic challenger received equal airtime, so he remembers launching a show called “Jim Blanchard and Country Western Music” featuring guests and music.
“Somebody got the idea of calling Jimmy Carter,” Blanchard said. At the time, Carter was a former governor and talking about running for president. “We actually got him to call into the station,” Blanchard said.
The former Michigan governor said Carter was a good speaker and a “really nice person.”
“But I don’t think he really liked politics,” Blanchard added. “It’s hard to do really well when you don’t.”
cmauger@detroitnews.com
Associated Press contributed.
