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Citizen Jimmy
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Business New Haven
11/22/1999
By: BNH
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Our Founding Fathers could never have foreseen the rise of a class of professional politicians in our time. The republic they conceived would be built on the shoulders of citizen-representatives, leading men from each community who would spend two or four years representing their neighbors in Washington, often at considerable personal and financial sacrifice.
Today's political landscape is populated with a species the framers of the Constitution could never have imagined: career politicos for whom Job One is continually raising enough bags of cash to get re-elected - over and over and over. It is probably not unfair to DeLauro, Dodd, Rowland and Lieberman to observe that, were they forced to find honest jobs in the private sector, God help them.
Make no mistake: Jimmy Carter was a professional politician, too. That "peanut farmer from Plains" stuff was more populist window dressing than reality. Trained as a nuclear engineer, one of Admiral Hyman Rickover's bright young minds when he served in the U.S. Navy's submarine arm, Carter left the service to pursue politics with energy and enthusiasm. After serving in the Georgia state senate, he won election to the governor's mansion in 1971. Five years later, he become one of the unlikeliest Presidents of this century.
The 39th President was in New Haven October 26 at a fundraising luncheon for Read To Grow, which provides books to newborns. He also autographed copies of his latest book - his 15th - Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith.
After he left office in 1981 he could have plied the rubber-chicken circuit, making speeches at $10,000 a pop. Instead, he set about doing good deeds. He founded the non-profit Carter Center in Atlanta to promote peace and human rights worldwide. Here at home, his work with Habitat for Humanity elevated the profile of that group's worthy efforts to provide housing to those who need it.
Whatever one's assessment of his Presidency, Jimmy Carter's post-White House career recalls the Founding Fathers' ideal of self-sacrificing citizen-representative. And in those works one sees reflected the very best qualities of his countrymen.
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