Georgia Superdelegate Jimmy Carter to Vote for Barack Obama at Democratic Convention

Former President Jimmy Carter, who will be a superdelegate from Georgia at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, told a Nigerian newspaper that he will cast his vote for Barack Obama, though he was coy about his admission. In his newspaper interview, he gave reasons why he likely would favor Obama over Hillary Clinton.

"Don't forget that Obama won in my state of Georgia," Carter told the interviewer. "My town, which is home to 625 people, is for Obama, my children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama."

Carter, however, would not come out and explicitly endorse Obama.

"As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for but I leave you to make that guess."

Since the death of Theodore Roosevelt in 1919, Former Presidents of the United States, by tradition, have remained above partisan politics. Bill Clinton has been heavily criticized for violating this nearly century-long tradition and engaging not only in daily campaigning for his wife Hillary Clinton, but in outright attacks on Barack Obama, who is Hillary's rival for the Democratic nomination. The perpetually shameless Bill Clinton even has stooped to the level of race-baiting and questioning Obama's patriotism.

The Hillary Clinton campaign had a muted reaction to the news. Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson issued a statement, saying "Both Senator Clinton and President Clinton have a great deal of respect for President Carter and have enjoyed their relationship with him over the years, and obviously he is free to make whatever decision he thinks is appropriate with regard to presidential choice."

In truth, Jimmy Carter has never gotten along with Bill Clinton. Carter was from the landed gentry whereas Bill Clinton was white-trash, and the South has as well-defined a class system as Britain or Boston. Although both were conservative-leaning moderates from the South, the Clintons' unprincipled lust for power and self-aggrandizement runs against the grain of Carter's own character, which is exemplified by selfless public service dedicated to helping his community and the world, rather than just helping himself, like the Clintons. (The Clintons' recently released tax returns over the past 7 years reveal that while they gave $10 million to charity, it was to their OWN charity.)

Like Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter was a terrible president, but a great man. He turned himself into a great man after surrendering the presidency, and has done much to help the world in the area of promoting human rights. Ex-President Bill Clinton, in contrast, is more focused on maintaining a purchase on the levers of power when he is not out making money, frequently playing pimp for businessmen seeking deals with foreign governments.

Bill Clinton, for a handsome retainer such as a multi-million dollar donation to his charity, will fly with a businessman to meet a head of state to make introductions. In this, he takes after former President George H.W. Bush, the man who pioneered the role of Ex-President as Pimp. Bill Clinton is very close to "Poppy" Bush, the man he beat for the Presidency in 1992, so much so that Poppy feels Bill is the son he has never had, George W. being a dunce and Jeb being a humorless prig who married poorly. Ex-President George H.W. Bush has been a father figure to Bill Clinton, a bastard whose mother picked out the name of a dead traveling salesman to put on his birth certificate, and was raised by her and an abusive, alcoholic stepfather in White Trash Land. Bill has taken a shine to the multi-millionaire Poppy, who has spent his life after the Presidency eschewing the good works that characterized the post-Presidency lives of Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter to focus on shaking the money tree for even more loot, not content with the millions he was born to. Bill & Poppy have polished off a vaudeville act where they appear to travel the world bringing good cheer to victims of disaster, but a closer look likely would reveal that they are using the gig as an excuse for free travel and to generate a little perfume to reduce the stench from their odious behavior, predicated as it is on hard cash.

Ex-President Poppy Bush has served as a role model to Bill Clinton, as the elder Bush is a master at coining money for giving speeches to corporations. Bush 41 is on retainer from the controversial Korean religious charlatan Sun Myung-Moon, who uses Poppy as a front to gain respectability. (Moon publishes the Washington Times, the house organ of the Establishment right-wing and the Bush 43 Administration.) George H.W. Bush also has masterfully used his investment company, the Carlyle Group, to make deals all over the world by playing on his status as an ex-President (and later, as the father of the President of the United States), parlaying his unrivaled political connections for as much money as the market will bear.

Their shameless self-aggrandizement borders on brigandry. It is so bad that Bush 41 and his former Secretary of State, James Baker, even went on a trip through the Middle East, shaking down Middle Eastern rulers for money. With Jim Baker as his mouthpiece, Poppy Bush resorted to blackmailing them, intimating that unless they made deals with Carlyle, Bush's son, President George W. Bush, would see that none of the hundreds of billions that the U.S. would earmark for the region would wind up in their kitty. Baker even told the emir of Kuwait that unless he came up with a multimillion dollar retainer for Carlyle, his country's claims for reparations against Iraq would be deep-sixed.

Bill Clinton watched and was impressed. Already having had a taste of an eight-figure fortune, after the presidency, he likely can imagine becoming a centi-millionaire if not a billionaire should his wife Hillary become president. Eight years of a Hillary Clinton President, and Bill -- with his great contacts on the right -- could acquire a fortune the equivalent of a pasha's ransom.

George Herbert Walker Bush, a High WASP multi-millionaire who is not content with his fortune but lusts for more gold, is the kind of man that Bill Clinton would rather associate with, not the more upright and moral Jimmy Carter. Is it any wonder that Carter would favor Barack Obama, with his inspiring message, rather than the self-serving, ego-maniacal Hillary Clinton?

In a January 2008 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Jimmy Carter said, "Obama's campaign has been extraordinary and titillating for me and my family."

Part of the excitement for Carter is that Obama would help heal the racial divides that has scarred this country since its inception, and which roiled the South and the Democratic Party over the last half-century.

Carter told the Wall Street Journal that he believes Obama "will be almost automatically a healing factor in the animosity now that exists, that relates to our country and its government."

He also believes that Obama as the Democratic nominee might give the Party a chance to win several states in the South in November, states that Democratic candidates have not been able to win since 1968, unless the Democratic nominee was from the region.

Since President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, only three Democrats have been elected President of the United States: Texan LBJ was reelected in '64; Georgian Carter won in 1976; and Arkansas Razorback Clinton was elected and reelected in 1992 and '96. All three Democratic Presidents hailed from states that made up the Confederate States of America that now are considered as being in the Republican camp when it comes to the Electoral College that actually elects the President. (Aside from Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, who hailed form California, all elected Presidents beginning in 1964 have been from the South, Bush 41 and Bush 43 claiming Texas as their domicile.)

Jimmy Carter told the Journal that he had been personally contacted Bill Clinton, who sought to explain comments he had made to the press belittling Barack Obama that many critics characterized as racist. Clinton was likely trying to avert public criticism of his behavior from Carter, who has become a revered figure around the world. Bill Clinton considers the Democratic Party his Democratic Party, and doesn't want anyone else, including former President Jimmy Carter exercising any practical influence in it.

Jimmy Carter is the anti-Bill Clinton, and the two have never gotten along. Bill Clinton was more comfortable soliciting advice from the disgraced Richard Nixon, who -- like Bill Clinton -- had the heart of a thief and an immoral bent in his soul. (Clinton had an immoral bent in both body and soul, if the deposition of Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against Clinton is to be believed.) Is it any wonder that Bill Clinton was the only President impeached by Congress in the past 140 years, and that his soul-mate Dick Nixon would have undergone the same fate had he not resigned in 1974? Bill Clinton, like Richard Nixon, has the psyche of a sociopath and the braggadocio of a brigand.

Jimmy Carter's reputation as a President and as a practical politician was left in tatters after being blown-out by Ronald Reagan -- previously thought unelectable due to his right-wing views -- in the 1980 general election. However, he has redeemed himself through a lifetime of good works and eventually won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Carter's sticking to the elder statesman role of ex-Presidents, remaining above politics, has suited him fine, as he has not tried to influence party politics. But Bill Clinton has violated that taboo and plunged into the nuts + bolts of everyday politics, tarnishing the luster of the Presidency. This invites Jimmy Carter, as the only ex-Democratic President, to plunge in and do the same thing, i.e., formally endorse Barack Obama, something the Clintons don't want due to Carter's moral stature and the affection and esteem he is held in among many Democrats who admire his moral stance and his life of unselfish service.

In the run-up to the South Carolina primary and after, Bill Clinton belittled Barack Obama's achievement, saying he was just a niche black candidate who appealed to African Americans, and thus it was to be expected that he win a state with a large black populations. He was Jesse Jackson-redux. Clinton's argument was disingenuous as Obama had won states that were predominantly white. The former President was trying to marginalize Obama in order to bolster the candidacy of his wife Hillary Clinton by pandering to the white working class male vote, a demographic that over the past generation has generally abandoned its traditional home in the Democratic Party due to a white backlash over civil rights and affirmative action.

Carter told the Journal that Bill Clinton personally called him to explain the racial remarks.

"He doesn't call me often," Carter told the Journal in January, "but the fact that he called me this morning and spent a long time explaining his position indicates that it's troublesome to them, the adverse reaction."

Carter added, "I told him I hoped it would die down -- the charged atmosphere concerning the race issue. And I think it will."

It has not.

Since Obama's win on Super Tuesday and his racking up a long string of victories until Hillary managed to win Ohio and the primary in Texas (Obama won the caucuses in the Lone Star State and the lion's share of delegates), the Clintons refined their race-baiting tactics. They still stuck to their message that Barack Obama, as an African American, could not win the general election because he's black, but they now set out to emphasize his link with the fire-breathing pastor Jeremiah Wright, who like many black folk of his generation (the modern Civil Rights Era of the 1960s and '70s) is not shy about blaming the white race for the degradations of racism.

The Clintons and their allies in the Democratic Establishment and on the right are now trying to portray Barack Obama as a reverse-racist for being a congregant of Wright's church. Hillary Clinton went so far as to sit next to Richard Mellon Scaife, the man she accused of being the money bags behind the "vast right-wing conspiracy" targeting her husband in the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal back in 1978, and race-baiting Obama in a sit-down with the staff of a newspaper Scaife owns. It was all very meretricious.

The continued race-baiting of the Clintons likely is the reason that Jimmy Carter has now all but endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. Ever the Southern gentleman, he is sticking to the code wherein former Presidents are not supposed to engage in politics, but in response to Bill's bluster, he's tweaking the rules a bit to tell Democrats who still believe in him that Obama is the better choice for President.

Sources:

CNN, "Carter hints at supporting Obama"

Wall Street Journal, "Carter Stays Neutral in Race, But Praises Obama's Oratory"