‘The man had character’: President Biden pays tribute to Jimmy Carter

President Joe Biden eulogized former President Jimmy Carter on Thursday. It was a capstone to a political friendship that lasted nearly 50 years.

“Throughout his life, [Carter] showed us what it means to be a practitioner of good works and a good and faithful servant of God,” Biden said. “Today, many think he was from a bygone era. In reality, he saw well into the future.”

Carter was the governor of Georgia when he launched his presidential bid in December 1974. He was initially considered a long shot. He was not well known outside his home state, and the primary field was crowded with 16 other candidates.

In August 1975, Biden became the first U.S. senator to back Carter’s campaign. Biden was the youngest member of Congress at the time and considered a rising star in the Democratic Party. Biden’s endorsement gave Carter the juice he needed to clinch the nomination.

Biden became a surrogate for Carter’s campaign. In a September 1976 interview with KFMB in San Diego, Biden was confident that Carter would beat President Gerald Ford in the coming debates.

“I think the biggest thing the debates will do is firm up which way the undecided voters are going to go,” Biden said, “and I’m convinced they’ll go with Gov. Carter.”

Carter, like Biden, served a single term in the White House. His lasting accomplishments include a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt that still stands today, and the creation of the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, which continues to provide food assistance to new and expectant mothers.

But Carter’s presidency was also bogged down by exterior forces, including runaway inflation and fractious international conflicts.

When Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy challenged Carter at the 1980 Democratic convention, Biden led a group of senators who opposed Kennedy. Carter ultimately prevailed and held onto his party’s nomination.

Biden later gave a speech at the convention praising Carter and harshly criticizing Republican candidate Ronald Reagan for offering “false hope” to the American people. While Biden was speaking, delegates from his home state of Delaware held up a handmade banner that said “Biden in ‘84.”

Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan. In his post-presidency, Carter pursued humanitarian projects around the world that included volunteering for Habitat for Humanity and fighting for the eradication of Guinea worm, a lethal disease that was endemic in parts of Africa. 

When Carter began his work on guinea worm in 1986, there were 3.5 million cases. In 2023, the same year he went into hospice care, there were 14 cases. 

Biden praised this work in his eulogy for Carter.

“Jimmy Carter also established a model post-presidency by making a powerful difference as a private citizen in America and around the world,” Biden said. “Through it all he showed us how character and faith starts with ourselves and then flows to others.”

Carter won a Noble Peace Prize in 2002. He died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.