Jimmy Carter's Best Campaign Strategist

How Rosalynn Carter Helped Her Husband Win the 1976 Election

Mar 16, 2009

During the 1976 presidential campaign, First Lady of Georgia Rosalynn Carter developed an unprecedented, proactive campaign strategy that led to her husband's victory.

Rosalynn Carter was not the typical presidential candidates' wife. For one thing, she interacted with the people of her native Georgia and the United States in order to urge them to support her husband, Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, during the 1976 presidential campaign. For another, Mrs. Carter spoke out about causes that were important to her and took a lot of heat for doing so. Ultimately, Rosalynn Carter's Southern charm and courage proved to be a winning combination.

When then-Georgia governor Jimmy Carter decided to run for president in 1976, his wife, Rosalynn, assembled a group of state and local supporters called "The Peanut Brigade" to inform voters about her husband. (The group was so named because Jimmy was a peanut farmer in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.) A people person, Rosalynn took every opportunity she could to get the message out. For example, she would look for where the largest numbers of people were gathered on her campaign stops.

She would target workers, including police officers and garbage collectors, who would gather together in particular places before their workday began. She would also go to fire stations and eat hearty breakfasts with firefighters. Of course, the biggest crowds in town were at the local K-Mart, but solicitation was prohibited there. Undaunted, Rosalynn would go into the store pretending to be a shopper and would stay until she was bum rushed by store managers. This may have attracted rather negative attention, but that was the idea-- and it worked. Finally, Rosalynn did all sorts of unusual things to lure potential voters. These things included: a shrimp boat cruise, a hot-air balloon tour, and a rattlesnake roundup. Rosalynn would literally go anywhere, do anything, and talk to anyone in order to help Jimmy win the election.

"The Peanut Brigade" went national eighteen months before the actual election. While campaigning in Florida, Rosalynn established a set of rules that became standard practice. Rosalynn visited courthouses to learn about influential locals, insisted on front-page newspaper coverage, traveled to radio stations, always stayed with local families on campaign stops, and was not shy about interrupting civic group meetings. As a result of these efforts, Governor Carter became Democratic nominee Carter in 1976.

Controversy in the Carter Campaign

While the Carter campaign had many ardent supporters, there were detractors. Jimmy and Rosalynn had always been proponents of progressive legislation. For instance, as Governor of Georgia, Jimmy took a strong anti-segregation stance. Rosalynn, meanwhile, stirred up a little campaign controversy of her own with her vocal support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Many ultra-conservative voters, particularly those in the Deep South, believed that being anti-segregation and pro-women's rights was synonymous with being anti-Christian and let the Carters know how they felt. Despite this opposition, Jimmy Carter became America's thirty-ninth president in November of 1976.

Harris, Bill. The First Ladies Fact Book, p. 625-39. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., 2005.

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