Get the best experience and stay connected to your community with our Spectrum News app. Learn More
Continue in Browser
Get hyperlocal forecasts, radar and weather alerts.
Please enter a valid zipcode.
Save
OHIO — Experts now weigh in on President Jimmy Carter’s political career and they describe him as one of the greatest men to hold office, yet a less successful one.
Some highs and the lows of Carter’s legacy include the political timing of his presidency, along with ideologies he held as president.
Case Western University law professor Jonathan Entin said Carter’s legacy will live forever. Carter passed away on Sunday at 100 years old.
“Jimmy Carter is just an extraordinary human being,” Entin said. “He was a less than successful president but a remarkable public servant and really citizen of the world.”
The Carter administration took the lead in deregulating a lot of industries, Entin said, such as the airline industry, the railroad, to some extent the communications industry.
Carter set in motion alongside Congress that passed legislation as he promoted less regulation and because of this work, Entin said, one of the first federal regulatory agencies, the Interstate Commerce Commission went out of business later on.
The way Carter ran the country was somewhat different, according to Entin.
“He didn’t try to cash in on his time as president. He didn’t make a lot of money, he went out and tried to do good in the best sense of the term,” Entin said. “Agencies like the Civil Aeronautics Board which used to set airfares, substantially cut back on its regulatory footprint.”
Carter stood out also as a southerner from Georgia.
“When he was elected governor in 1970 in his inaugural address, he said the time for racial discrimination is over,” Entin said.
Public policy professor Joseph White, from Luxenberg Family of Case Western Reserve, explained why Carter stood out, and why he was a one term president.
“He got unlucky, and he also tried to deal with some things that people weren’t willing to quite deal with yet, like the environmental problems which he took very seriously," White said.
Carter lost by a wide margin in 1980, White said that was because his term was at the tail-end of the new deal coalition.
“New issues that come up that, for instance, were separating the more left-wing intellectuals from the working-class democrats, sound familiar?” White said.
A state funeral is scheduled in Washington for Carter on Jan. 9, as President Joe Biden has declared that day as a national day of mourning across the U.S.
Regardless of the highs and lows, White said Carter will be remembered as an extraordinary president.
Carter really believed in trying to make peace, White said, and trying to help people and that’s why his legacy is now engraved in history forever.
“Even though he wanted to do things like expand health insurance, he really took very seriously, the deficit and accepted it as a constraint,” White said. “I think Jimmy Carter believed in love, not hate.”
