Introducing From David’s Desk, a new newsletter penned by Carlyle Co-Founder and Co-Chairman David M. Rubenstein and other leaders across our firm. Each edition provides insights on public policy, geopolitics, and other topics in and around Washington, DC.

Since the unexpected passing of George Washington in 1799 (when he had his wrists cut to let out the bad spirits that were causing him breathing troubles), the United States has generally honored its deceased presidents with several days of mourning, following a well-honed and somewhat ritualistic process that is quite captivating to the American public, most especially to the deceased president’s supporters and admirers.

The United States is experiencing this process once again as President Carter, the only president to reach 100 years of age, will ultimately be laid to rest in Plains, Georgia near a home he built and lived in more for than sixty years. He will be laid to rest alongside his Naval Academy sweetheart, partner in all his many activities, best friend, and wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter.

The process of burying US presidents is now fairly wellplannedin advance. Currently, when presidents are in office, and subsequent to leaving office, their funeral plans are coordinated with the US government (typically the US Military District of Washington). That was not the case at the time of President Lincoln, where the appropriate mourning process was cobbled together quite quickly— Lincoln’s coffin laid in repose at the White House, and then in state at the Capitol, before being transported by train to Springfield, Illinois. The current practice of advance planning still had not really been put in place when President Kennedy was assassinated, and his family worked to put together a mourning ceremony somewhat modeled after Lincoln’s, though President Kennedy was ultimately laid to rest, at his widow’s insistence, at Arlington Cemetery rather than the Kennedy family burial plot in the Boston area, with Mrs. Kennedy also insisting on the eternal flame that still burns at the grave site.

While President Carter approved all the funeral plans the nation will now see unfold, the process is a bit unusual in that some who worked on the plans with him, like his wife and various government officials, did not live long enough to see them put into place. President Carter simply outlived many who had worked on this over the years. Two individuals President Carter wanted to give eulogies predeceased him—President Ford and Vice President Mondale, whose long-ago-prepared remarks will be delivered at the memorial services by their sons, Steven Ford and Ted Mondale.

The basic funeral began in Plains, Georgia, traveled briefly to the State House in Georgia, then the Carter Center in Atlanta on January 4th, where after a private service, the public was able to begin paying their respects to President Carter’s flag-draped coffin at the Center. On January 7th, the coffin was flown to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, transported by motorcade to the US Navy Memorial in Washington—Carter was a Naval officer early in his career—and then taken by horse drawn military wagon to the Capitol, where members of Congress, other government officials, and the public were able to pay their respects until today.

Following the service, President Carter’s coffin will be driven back to Joint Base Andrews for a flight back to Georgia for a final memorial service at Carter’s church in Plains, and then a private burial later that day. The 39th President will be laid to rest in the city he grew up in, spent much of his life in, and resisted countless entreaties from friends and some family to move from because of its inconvenience and lack of big-city cultural and other attractions. But President Carter was never convinced— once he had made up his mind on certain subjects important to him, like where to live, he rarely could be persuaded otherwise by anyone, with the possible exception of Rosalynn. (Rosalynn was also from Plains but did not like it, and she was pleased to be living in many different places with her husband when he was in the Navy. But Carter decided to return to Plains upon his father’s death, to take over the family peanut business. Rosalynn hated the idea of returning to the small city of her youth, and barely talked to her husband as they drove back. But she came to love Plains, a city of about 600 people, as much as her husband did.)

I saw this kind of determination and commitment—some would say stubbornness—to what President Carter believed in many times during the four years I worked for him in the White House as a young and junior policy aide. (I was 27, three years out of law school, but I managed to convince Stu Eizenstat that I could serve adequately as his deputy at the White House following the general election campaign in 1976, where I had earlier been hired to work by Stu at the campaign headquarters in Atlanta.)

White House staff positions are often filled by young men and women who work as volunteers or lowly-paid campaign workers to help someone become president, with the hope that a White House or administration job might follow if the campaign is successful. I was in that category—not qualified, not experienced, but eager and willing to work long hours, an occupational hazard of White House jobs.

As President Carter returns to Washington for the final time, it is full circle from the time he arrived in 1977 and left in 1981. When he did arrive as the 39th President, he was lauded by many as a real man of the people—a peanut farmer from the Deep South who had slayed the giants in the Democratic Party to get the nomination, and then beat an incumbent President Gerald Ford to win the 1976 election. The hopes among Democrats and those who had voted for Carter were quite high. He was going to bring fresh perspectives, a new look at existing problems, and present a different type of president to the American people. He was not from the “Washington Establishment.” He was not a lawyer, had not been involved in Vietnam or Watergate, had a picturesque family including an 8-year old daughter, carried his own bags, was as low key and non-imperial as possible, and had a smile that lit up rooms and presented the image of a normal person who happened to get elected president by some type of political magic. (Carter was helped by the fact that Ford had pardoned Richard Nixon, made a terrible mistake in one of the debates when he said Poland was not under the domination of the Soviet Union, and lost his voice in the last few days of the campaign when he was otherwise closing the gap with Carter, who narrowly won 297-240 in the Electoral College.)

Four years later, Carter lost decisively to Ronald Reagan, someone Carter did not really take seriously, in a humiliating 489-49 Electoral College loss. He thought Reagan was not very substantive, did not have any real policy knowledge or interests comparable to Carter’s, and was more of an actor than a public leader. And so, President Carter had to go back to Plains and rebuild his life at age 56, with little clue about his future. His business left behind in Plains had almost gone bankrupt under the control of the trustees hired to manage it during his presidency. Initially, Carter did not think he could find support to build a library, or to be a public figure again of any consequence. (Ultimately, a library and museum were built, at a cost that seems trivial today—under $30 million.

In 1984, I offered with others to host a reception for Carter at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco; he initially did not want to have one, thinking that so few people would show up, he would be embarrassed. His own former Vice President, Walter Mondale, and his staff did not even want Carter to speak in prime time at that convention.) But more than four decades later, the world turned around again. The man who left Washington so unpopular is now returning as a prime example of how to make a post-presidency actually work. He has become the role model for how former presidents—with no remaining legal power or constitutional role—can still serve their country.

Since leaving office, what Carter achieved is simply breathtaking: the Carter Center (including a library and museum) was built and opened in 1986, and has become a gold standard for presidential centers; President Carter led a successful effort to eliminate the scourge in Africa, and elsewhere, of river blindness and Guinea worm; he led election monitoring services in more than a hundred overseas elections; he led peacekeeping missions to Haiti and North Korea; he wrote more than 30 books; he led human rights missions throughout the world, won the Nobel Peace Prize, counseled many of his successors when they were president, continued to teach Sunday school regularly, built several thousand homes with his own hands for Habitat for Humanity, became a painter, woodworker, and poet (a rare combination), learned how to ski and mountain climb (in addition to his already expert fly-fishing skills that he further perfected), beat melanoma cancer in his brain, had 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren (in addition to the four children he had before becoming president), and—hardest of all—did all of this while maintaining his humble, uninterested-in-perks-or-money, average-man approach to life.

Jimmy Carter was a highly intelligent man—but there are many highly intelligent men who achieve political power in this country and others, but they typically lack Carter’s other unique qualities. Carter was also intensely curious, determined to learn what he did not know, and became, because of that curiosity and unique drive, what we rarely see in modern life—a true Renaissance man.

But a fair question might be asked: how did this highly intelligent man and political savior for the Democrats in 1976 go from being so popular when he took office, to so unpopular when he sought re-election, and then again become so popular by the time he made his final trip to Washington?

Of course, the passage of time solves many problems and heals many wounds, but there is no one easy answer to the turn-around in Carter’s popularity. As president, Carter was willing to try many things that were not popular. He did not care about his personal popularity (ultimately to his political detriment) and always wanted to do what he believed was the morally right thing to do. He was against large dams that he thought were wasteful and environmentally damaging, and he canceled many politically popular dams at the beginning of his administration—to the consternation of many of his fellow Democrats and biggest supporters in Congress.

He thought there should be a national energy policy and developed one (largely in secret at the outset) that was politically unpopular initially and that overwhelmed Congress’ ability to respond. (Carter did get most of this ultimately approved, though at real political cost in energy-producing states.)

He thought the Panama Canal should revert to Panama (as did his immediate predecessor), in part because of the problem of securing it militarily and because of the fairness of returning its control to the country in which it was built. That was politically unpopular, but he got the treaty through the Senate, at some real political cost.

He wanted to create two new cabinet departments to make energy and education programs work better, and he was able to get the Departments of Energy and Education created, again at some real political cost.

He thought that airline ticket prices and rail and trucking rates should be set—not in Washington, but by the market—and wanted to deregulate those industries. And he was able to get this done, as always, with some real political damage.

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He wanted to bring human rights into the country’s foreign policy and did that regularly in ways that had not been done before. (He created the first assistant secretary of state for human rights.)

He wanted to bring peace to the Middle East and set out to negotiate a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt—military enemies since 1948—and did so through a diplomatic tour de force unrivalled in presidential diplomacy, using a nearly two-week period at Camp David to bring the two countries’ leaders, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, together. And that peace agreement is still in effect today.

He wanted to recognize China, after the opening done earlier by Nixon, and got the approvals and authority necessary to bring about that recognition.

But all these actions, and many others, led to a less popular Carter. His style tended to be a little preachy for some. He tended to make decisions based on what he thought were the best policies, often ignoring the politics involved. Telling him that something would hurt him politically almost propelled him to move forward with the politically unpopular move.

Carter’s style also grated on many. He was not a great orator and disliked the kind of Oval Office or highly scripted speeches his predecessors favored to explain difficult matters. His voice was high pitched with a Southern accent, a combination that some found less pleasant to listen to.

He surrounded himself with many who worked with him in Georgia, and many were simply not experienced in the ways of Washington. Carter did not like the social life of Washington, and he and his staff generally avoided that scene as well, which did not endear him to the Washington establishment or press.

And all of that was before the ultimate bad luck set in. The inflation inherited from President Ford—who actually created the “WIN” buttons (Whip Inflation Now) continued and worsened. Problems in the Middle East reduced oil production and imports, and thus gasoline prices rose and shortages occurred. Russia invaded Afghanistan and Carter could do little about it but boycott the Olympics, which was not popular in the United States. And after postponing a speech on energy for two weeks, Carter went to Camp David to think about the country’s future. He ultimately gave his famous “malaise” speech, which did not actually use the word “malaise” but did admonish the American people for selfish and narcissistic attitudes. It was not a popular speech. Carter also made the mistake simultaneously of asking for the resignations of his Cabinet officers, which made the country, and the world, think his government was falling. (He accepted only a few of the resignations, but the damage was done.)

And then the ultimate bad luck—against his better judgement and after much lobbying by the foreign policy establishment, Carter let the former Shah of Iran into the United States for cancer treatment, and the result was the takeover of the US Embassy and 52 hostages. While that was initially expected to end in a few days, the hostages were held for over a year, paralyzing the Carter Administration. Carter was determined to get the hostages out alive and focused a year of his presidency on that mission. He refused to use military force against Iran, thinking it could result in the hostages’ deaths (which was abhorrent to him, having bonded to some extent with hostages’ families against his advisors’ recommendations). In time, he did authorize a rescue mission, but it failed miserably, resulting in no hostages being released, as well as eight American soldiers dying in the crash of a US helicopter and transport plane in the desert. Undoubtedly one of the absolute low points of the Carter Administration, compounded by the Secretary of State Cy Vance resigning to protest the rescue mission even being attempted.

Once all of this added up, Carter was very vulnerable politically. While Republicans argued that Carter was not tough enough or presidential enough, one prominent Democrat argued that Carter was not liberal enough—not hewing to traditional Democratic programs, such as support for universal health care. That Democrat was Senator Ted Kennedy, who challenged Carter for the presidential nomination in 1980. Initially Kennedy stumbled in explaining why he wanted to be president, and the problems of his past personal life began to hurt him politically. Carter was initially able to use the early public support he was getting for focusing on the hostages and Iran, but that wore off as the primaries moved forward and Carter’s popularity within his party faded. Kennedy came somewhat close to getting the nomination, and although he did not succeed, Carter was wounded politically and Kennedy, along with his supporters, fell short of providing the support Carter had hoped for during the general election campaign.

Adding some further bad luck, Carter’s general election opponent was his opposite—and people seemed to want the opposite of Carter. Reagan was not interested in the details of policy; he had a simple massage—lower taxes, less government, and stronger defense. And Reagan, a former TV and radio broadcaster and actor, had the charm and persona that contrasted with Carter’s somewhat dour demeanor and schoolmarmish attitude on matters.

There was only one debate between the candidates. I was involved in helping Carter prepare, but he did not feel he needed much preparation. (Incumbent presidents tend to think they know all of the issues, for they deal with them every day.) We had one practice session at Camp David. The person playing Reagan did very well; Carter was not happy with the result, stormed out of the session, and we never had another real opportunity to practice. When the actual debate occurred, Carter more than held his own on points, but Reagan’s friendly demeanor and jovial style did not seem threatening to the voters, and Reagan was widely seen as having won the debate. (Reagan famously said “there you go again” to Carter’s charge that Reagan had opposed Medicare initially; that was true, but the damage was done. Fact checking rarely catches up with the picture.)

This was one week before the election; not much time to turn around that performance or the impression Carter had given. But at the last moment there seemed to be a bright light. It appeared that there was a breakthrough in finally getting the hostages released. If they were in fact released before the election, it was widely thought that the good feeling in the US would enable Carter to overcome what appeared to be a two-to-threepercentage-point polling position behind Reagan. So, hopes went very high on the Carter-side. Carter interrupted the campaign to go back to Washington to try to get the release done. But it did not happen.

This failure, again, played to the image of Carter being weak. And it appeared to really impact the polling— certainly among undecideds, who broke heavily against Carter. (As now seems to be the case—not known then— William Casey, then Reagan’s campaign chair and later Reagan’s CIA Director, appears to have had contact with the Iranians and implied that a better relationship could be had with Reagan if the hostages were released after the election. No one seems to have definitive proof of what happened in this regard. But there was a good deal of circumstantial evidence that something along these lines occurred.)

Carter was defeated decisively in the election and was so discouraged about the outcome that he conceded before the polls closed in California, likely impacting some of the close congressional elections there. But Carter knew he had lost badly and just wanted to get the concession out of the way.

After the election, Carter proceeded to try to do as much as possible by executive order—like taking large parts of federal land in Alaska and barring oil and gas drilling there—but he still worked tirelessly to free the hostages. It was clear later that those holding the hostages did not want to give Carter the pleasure of saying the hostages were freed on his watch. The hostages were released just a few minutes after Reagan was inaugurated. But Carter did go visit the hostages in Germany, with a special plane provided by then-President Reagan.

Then Carter returned to figure out what to do with the rest of his life.

For those who worked for Carter, the same dilemma arose. One day you have power, and everyone tells you how great you are or what you can to do to help them. And the next day you are hailing a cab in Washington and trying to get your calls returned by the same people who once told you how great you are.

For many young individuals who worked for Carter, the adjustment was tough. Some lost their desire to return to government, and never did. Others did return to serve in subsequent Democratic administrations, and with distinction (such as Secretary Madeleine Albright). As Carter is laid to rest this week, the country will no doubt feel better about him then it did when he left office. Fortyfour years in the political desert gave him the time to show his intelligence, persistence, determination, morality, and humanity in ways that his presidency did not always do.

Whether someone with the qualities of a Jimmy Carter could ever again emerge from the current political process is doubtful. Carter was not willing to do what is probably required today to get to the top of the political world. And while his administration was not at the time viewed that favorably by voters, in hindsight he accomplished a great deal—more than current presidents are expected to do. He wanted to do everything, would not prioritize, and the result was a batch of failures alongside a batch of successes. The percentage of successes would no doubt have been higher had Carter tried to do less, but that was not in his nature. He seemed to want to do in one term what might normally take two terms—as if he knew he might only have one term. And maybe he did know. He seemed to have a direct line to God.

Jimmy Carter’s mentor and role model was the head of the nuclear navy, Admiral Hyman Rickover, who brought Carter into the nuclear navy and served almost as a father figure to Carter.

After an initial interview, when Carter was asked by Rickover whether he had done his best at some task and Carter honestly replied that he probably had not, Rickover instilled in Carter that one should always try to do their best. That was reflected in the title of Carter’s first book, one that propelled his 1976 campaign—Why Not the Best? Carter was always trying to do what he thought was best, would not settle for second-rate, or anything other than the ideal. In politics that does not always work. But Carter never changed his view on the importance of trying always to do his best and instilling in others that they try to do the same.

And anyone who wants to advance in their career, even if not to the presidency, should indeed consider whether they are doing their best at what they are attempting to do. And if not, why not?

One can do his or her best in ways different than Carter did. Everyone has their own personality, strengths, and weaknesses. But as one remembers Carter this week, and remembers how he came from essentially nowhere to be president, against great odds, and how he went through the depths of despair after losing to Ronald Reagan, but came back to achieve so much after his presidency, one should always ask themselves—am I doing my best? Can I do better? Can I leave a mark on others’ lives? Can I make the world a better, more humane place? Can I do something meaningful with my life, as Carter did with his?

We should all remember this legacy of Carter’s—using your skills to the best of your ability, work as hard as possible, be persistent, be moral, have faith in what you are doing and in your potential to change the world. That is Carter’s greatest legacy—showing people how to live one’s life committed to helping others. And showing others what they can achieve if they always try their best. President Carter always did. Why not the best?