Jimmy Carter quotes:

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It took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan. -- Ted Cruz
The Democrats never fight about who is more like Jimmy Carter. -- Marco Rubio
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Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. If he ran unopposed he would have lost. -- Mort Sahl
Jimmy Carter as President is like Truman Capote marrying Dolly Parton. The job is just too big for him. -- Rich Little
There are examples of ex-presidents speaking out. Jimmy Carter has not held back on a variety of issues. Harry Truman didn't. -- Robert Dallek
Without Jimmy Carter we might not have gotten Ronald Reagan, without Ronald Reagan there would probably still be a Soviet Union. -- Newt Gingrich
Teddy Roosevelt... once said, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick.' Jimmy Carter wants to speak loudly and carry a fly swatter. -- Gerald R. Ford
Don't worry, America. We survived Jimmy Carter, and we will survive Barack Obama. Only one questions remains... who is the next Ronald Reagan? -- Kathleen Troia McFarland
President Jimmy Carter was a citizen soldier. Ironically, he was considered weak because he didn't kill anybody and he didn't get anyone killed. -- Andrew Young
If you could have imagined that someone is happy that Obama is president, it has to be Jimmy Carter because he is no longer the worst president in our history. -- Oliver North
When it comes to jobs, President Obama makes the Jimmy Carter years look like good old days. If we fired Jimmy Carter then, why would we rehire Barack Obama now? -- Paul Ryan
In critical ways, Obama has reversed not just Bush policy but every president's approach to the world since the Second World War, save for that of his soulmate Jimmy Carter. -- Elliott Abrams
In 1976, Jimmy Carter - peanut farmer; carried his own suitcase, imagine that - somewhat tapped America's durable but shallow reservoir of populism. By 1980, ordinariness in high office had lost its allure. -- George Will
In Plains, I saw Jimmy Carter as he really is - a nice, decent man... in terms of compassionate contribution to society, he certainly has proven to be our best past president. -- Helen Thomas
Electing Barack Obama president was a glorious Jackie Robinson moment for the United States of America. Obama didn't just win; he became the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to win a popular-vote majority. -- Timothy Noah
Reagan won because he was real. He believed in America. He told people he was gonna make it great again coming out of a disastrous four years of Jimmy Carter and Watergate before that. -- Rush Limbaugh
A troubled economy is always the sitting president's fault. It was when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, when Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, and when Barack Obama defeated John McCain by running against George W. Bush. -- Mark McKinnon
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I met Gerald Ford. I met Richard Nixon. I met Jimmy Carter. I met Dwight Eisenhower when he was a general. George Bush senior. I haven't met Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, although I got a letter from him. -- Pete Rose
More and more, Democrats are starting to worry they that they have a more um, colorful version of Jimmy Carter on their hands. Obama acts cool as a proverbial cucumber but that awful '70s show seems frightfully close to a rerun. -- Eric Alterman
The post-presidency, as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have proved, is a win-win. Money, Nobels, the ability to leverage your global celebrity for any cause or hobbyhorse you wish, plus freedom to grab the mike whenever the urge takes you without any terminal repercussions. -- Tina Brown
I would say to my colleague that the misery index, inflation and unemployment, when added together is the lowest it has been in the last series of Presidents, even going back to Jimmy Carter. So I think the Bush administration is doing a good job. -- Cliff Stearns
It's possible that the 2012 general-election race will be the least overtly religious one since 1972, the last campaign before Roe v. Wade and the rise of Jimmy Carter brought evangelicalism into the political mainstream. That's because faith remains a complicated issue for Obama, who is still wrongly thought to be a Muslim in some quarters. -- Jon Meacham
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I don't claim to be knowledgeable about theology. Most of my knowledge comes out of my experience and the lessons in the Bible. Every Sunday I'm home I teach 45 minutes and we boiled them down to one page for the new book, 'Through the Year with Jimmy Carter.' -- Jimmy Carter
If I hadn't been so outspoken, Jimmy Carter wouldn't have wanted me. -- Andrew Young
I don't know what people have against Jimmy Carter. He's done nothing. -- Bob Hope
President Obama is a president so weak that he makes Jimmy Carter look strong. -- Newt Gingrich
Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as 'the president who lost Iran,' -- Barack Obama
It was not malaise we suffered from; it was Jimmy Carter - and Walter Mondale. -- Jeane Kirkpatrick
I'm looking for a president that'll be like a Ronald Reagan to a Jimmy Carter. -- Rudy Giuliani
He [Jimmy Carter] says his lust is in his heart. I hope it's a little lower. -- Shirley MacLaine
President Obama was the most liberal and most incompetent president in my lifetime ever since Jimmy Carter. -- Bobby Jindal
I've met a handful of presidents, from Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton to George Bush to Barack Obama. -- Jimmie Johnson
The reason he [Jimmy Carter] says he never lies is because he thinks the truth originates with him. -- Lester Maddox
Stylistically speaking, Barack Obama could hardly be further from Jimmy Carter if he really had been born in Kenya. -- Eric Alterman
There should be full engagement to protect our country from a grave threat, which is the weakest foreign policy since Jimmy Carter. -- Jeb Bush
One undeniable accomplishment of Bill Clinton's presidency was that it kept Jimmy Carter from being the worst U.S. president in history. -- Thomas Sowell
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Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his. -- Ronald Reagan
Frankly, neither president [Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter] was an inspiring figure; so, maybe their lack of inspiration by the founders shouldn't surprise us. -- Paul Kengor
Bush met with former President Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter is 76 years old, or as Democrats call him 'their bright new star of the future.' -- David Letterman
[On Jimmy Carter] "Huck Finn. Loss of identity drives people to nostalgia. Electronic man has no physical body, so he puts nostalgia in its place. -- Marshall McLuhan
Future historians will be able to study at the Jimmy Carter Library, the Gerald Ford Library, the Ronald Reagan Library, and the Bill Clinton Adult Bookstore. -- George Carlin
What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation. -- Paul Weyrich
It would be bad for the economy if we have another Jimmy Carter grain embargo, Jimmy, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter grain embargo, Jimmy Carter grain embargo. -- Dan Quayle
I only remember a few things about Jimmy Carter. He had big lips and liked peanuts. I now know that Jimmy Carter was and is a good man. -- Kurt Cobain
I didn't work for Jimmy Carter all those years to go to cocktail parties. I was there as a political adviser, a short-order cook, to work on topical matters. -- Hamilton Jordan
In the last 100 years only Presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford lost their bids for reelection. President Lyndon Johnson did not run for a second term. -- Juan Williams
Indeed, one modern President abjured God altogether, ending speeches with a chaste 'Thank you very much.' This was Jimmy Carter, the most genuinely devout President of the postwar period. -- Jonathan Rauch
The only book by a modern president that bears serious comparison with Obama's 'Dreams From My Father' is Jimmy Carter's short campaign autobiography, 'Why Not the Best?,' published in 1975. -- Jonathan Raban
Though there are many differences between Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, they are strikingly similar in their poor economic records and even more so in their shared pessimism and bearishness on America. -- David Limbaugh
Pundits are saying that President Obama is starting to lose support among his own party. To give you an idea of how bad it's gotten, today Jimmy Carter compared him to Jimmy Carter. -- Jay Leno
Four years of Jimmy Carter gave us two titanic Reagan landslides, peace and prosperity for eight blessed years - and even a third term for his feckless vice president, George H.W. Bush. -- Ann Coulter
Europeans have always thought of U.S. presidents as either naive, as they did with Jimmy Carter, or as cowboys, as they did with Lyndon Johnson, and held them in contempt in either case. -- George Friedman
Barack Obama's discovering what a nightmare dealing with hostage problems is - a discovery previously made by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, i don't see a lot of room for change in American policy. -- Bruce Riedel
I am not predicting here that Obama will fail like Jimmy Carter. What I am predicting is the Republican Party is not extinct and will after a period of time become a strong opposition party. -- Ed Rollins
Jimmy Carter began his planning in the early summer of 1976, Ronald Reagan a year prior. The Clinton Administration, elected in 1992, lingered in naming its team, and as a result, took almost a year to staff its ranks. -- Richard V. Allen
Jimmy Carter laid out policies that we now look back at and say, 'Gee, that actually made sense.' But you also need to explain it and convey and communicate in a way that provides that tableau, that understanding. -- Eliot Spitzer
I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence. -- Michele Bachmann
The best thing going for us is Al Gore. I cannot conceive how the American people could elect him. On the other hand, I couldn't conceive how they could elect a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton - especially Clinton in '96. -- Lyn Nofziger
President Ronald Reagan on his 1980 opponent: "I had a dream the other night. I dreamed that Jimmy Carter came to me and asked why I wanted his job. I told him I didn't want his job. I want to be President." -- Bob Dole
We saw what happened in Jimmy Carter's administration. President Carter was a good man with the best of intentions. But he came to Washington without a good working relationship with Democratic members of Congress, which played a big part in his administration's problems. -- Jim Hunt
I saw [Ronald] Reagan. I've watched Jimmy Carter and his selflessness, getting involved in things like votes in African countries, but also putting his foot right into the whole Israel-Palestine crisis. Sometimes into places where people are going, "Why are you doing that?" . -- David Mandel
We had a party with the rest of the skaters in our trailer and then the next day we were off to see Jimmy Carter. And then we had the World Championships the next weekend, so not a lot of chance to catch up. -- Eric Heiden
Just when you think there's nothing to write about, Nixon says, 'I am not a crook.' Jimmy Carter says, 'I have lusted after women in my heart.' President Reagan says, 'I have just taken a urinalysis test, and I am not on dope. -- Art Buchwald
Ever since John Kennedy, Democrats have had a weakness for dashing younger men like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and, I suppose, Jimmy Carter. They balance their tickets with senior statesmen - Lyndon Johnson, Joe Biden, Walter Mondale. (Al Gore was young but played ancient). -- Joe Klein
Liberals are constantly wrong. In fact, that's how you rise to the top in liberalism, by being wrong. If you are wrong, and if you are consistently wrong, it's even better. You're really one of them if you're really wrong all the time. Look at Jimmy Carter. -- Rush Limbaugh
Three American presidents-Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson-have asked the question: What do we get from aiding Pakistan? Five-Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama-have wondered aloud whether Pakistan's leaders can be trusted to keep their word. -- Husain Haqqani
The reason inflation was brought down to manageable levels, by the time of Ronald Reagan's re-election, was directly attributable to Jimmy Carter's very courageous act, hiring a Federal Reserve chair, with the charge to induce a recession. That recession was probably the reason he didn't win a second term. -- Rick Perlstein
John Quincy Adams ranks with Jimmy Carter on the roster of ex-presidential redemption. Instead of completing a biography of his father, he let himself be elected to the House, where he spent nine terms in Whiggish opposition to the Democrats, supporting a national bank and a protective tariff and internal improvements. -- Thomas Mallon
Stop seeing socialists and anti-Americans as Democrats. When a Michael Moore compares beheaders to our own Minutemen and laments that too many Democrats were in the World Trade Center, he deserves no platform alongside Wesley Clark or a seat next to Jimmy Carter or praise for his pseudo-dramas from high Democrats. -- Victor Davis Hanson
Really, an historic night last night. You may have heard, Barack Obama will be the first black president of the United States of America. ... Obama is also the first Democrat to receive more than 50 percent of the vote since Jimmy Carter, the first senator to be elected since Jack Kennedy, the first Muslim to be ... I said too much. -- Jon Stewart
It's hard to look inside a person to answer a question about why anybody wants to be president. I suppose a combination of ambition, ego, and a real feeling that he could make a difference and could accomplish some things. All you ever had to do for Jimmy Carter was to tell him something was impossible, and he would usually do it. -- Hamilton Jordan
It is often said that Americans have no sense of history. Ask a college student who Jimmy Carter was and they will likely reply that he was a general in the Civil War, which occurred in 1492, when Americans dumped tea into the Gulf of Tonkin, sparking the First World War, which ended with the invasion of Grenada and the development of the cotton press. -- J. Maarten Troost
The old rule in Massachusetts politics is shape of the field determines the winner. If you have got a whole bunch of hawks, all the way from [Mike] Huckabee all the way across to [Chris]Christie, that covers the spectrum on every other issue, all hawks, all hawks, and one guy out there saying, not me, Jimmy Carter won that way back in `76. I know it`s 1,000 years ago. -- Chris Matthews
During a recent press conference, former President Jimmy Carter said he could never run for president today because he doesn't have a lot of money. Well, that and the fact that he's the famously bad president Jimmy Carter. -- Jimmy Fallon
Billy Carter, who asked his brother Jimmy, Do you think you could get me on the Gong Show? Never got a dinner! -- Red Buttons
Here's a foolproof method for keeping America safe. Always do the exact 180-degree opposite of whatever [Jimmy] Carter says, as quickly as possible. -- Ann Coulter
I was disappointed in how [Bill] Clinton, like [Jimmy] Carter, used the founders to argue for huge expansions in federal power, clearly beyond what the founders could have ever conceived. -- Paul Kengor
[Gerald] Ford and [Jimmy] Carter, in fact, were huge disappointments to me. Think about this: They were the presidents around the time of America's historic bicentennial, and yet rarely quoted the founders. -- Paul Kengor

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