To every audience, large or small, I swore “never to tell a lie or to make a misleading statement.” I was able to point to my success, as governor of Georgia, in completely reorganizing the state government and instituting an innovative technique that made annual comparisons possible between old and new programs. My campaign literature emphasized my roots as a peanut farmer from the tiny village of Plains, Georgia. The support of Andrew Young, the King family, and other civil rights heroes helped me overcome the potential racist stigma of coming from the Deep South; I was well aware that if I won, I would be the first successful candidate from this region since Zachary Taylor in 1848.

I had very little money, but I began campaigning as soon as I left the Georgia governor’s office in January 1975. My former press secretary, Jody Powell, was my traveling companion. In Atlanta, we had a superb team of issue analysts working under the direction of Stuart Eizenstat, who had performed the same service for Hubert Humphrey in 1968. During the succeeding months, our campaign team put together two groups of surrogates that supplemented my full- time effort, an unusual technique that ultimately prevailed. One was a large group of my fellow Georgians, known as the “Peanut Brigade.” At their own expense, they traveled to New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, and other key states. They walked door-to-door handing out my campaign literature and extolling my record and my views to every citizen they encountered.

Even more effective were the members of my own family. As directed by my campaign manager, Hamilton Jordan, six teams campaigned separately, led by my wife, Rosalynn; my sons, Jack, Chip, and Jeff, and their wives; my mother, Lillian; and her youngest sister, Emily. When we got together, we shared experiences, discussed subjects that seemed most important to prospective voters, and made sure that we would be “preaching the same sermon” during the week ahead. All of us understood that it was critical that we speak with one voice regarding abortion, education, farm policy, Israel, nuclear weaponry, and other important and sensitive issues. To save money, we spent nights with families supportive of (or at least interested in) our campaign.

During most of 1975, the other candidates were campaigning part-time, and they never realized the effectiveness of what we were doing — until it was too late. Rosalynn, for instance, visited 115 towns and cities in Iowa and spent seventy-five days in Florida. We concentrated on the key states with the earliest returns, and in the winter of 1976 I came in first in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Florida. After that, my opponents cooperated in what became known as ABC — Anybody But Carter. They would choose the most popular person for a particular state and give that candidate their concerted support. This tactic sometimes succeeded, but by the end of the primary season I had a clear majority of delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

My first decision after being assured of victory was to choose my running mate. I decided that I needed to compensate for my lack of experience in Washington, and seriously considered Senators John Glenn, Frank Church, Scoop Jackson, Ed Muskie, and Walter Mondale. After long meetings and interviews, I found that Mondale was personally most compatible with me, and we shared similar ideas on how he and I could work together as a team.

For me, the general election was much more difficult than the Democratic primaries. I had been running as a somewhat lonely and independent candidate — a peanut farmer and former governor who was quite removed from the Washington scene. Now I inherited the leadership mantle of the

Democratic Party, including all its negative and burdensome trappings. My opponent, Gerald Ford, was a fine man who had survived a brutal primary challenge from California governor Ronald Reagan. Many Americans felt indebted to President Ford for having salvaged the integrity of the White House after Richard Nixon resigned in political disgrace.

Despite these handicaps, Fritz Mondale and I won a narrow victory. The day after the election, I began to prepare for my inauguration and the responsibility of serving as president of the United States.