Don't worry, GOP: The Democrats ran 17 candidates in 1976, and America elected Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter may have some lesson for today&#039;s GOP

(Image credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

published 8 September 2015

There are 17 Republicans running for the 2016 presidential nomination, and if that sounds like an unprecedented circus, it at least isn't unprecedented, notes historian Julian Zelizer at Politico. About that many candidates ran for the Democratic nomination in 1976, and they were just as motley a crew: Lots of prominent U.S. senators, some former governors, and a handful of longshot activists and non-politicians. Newspaper commentators at the time predicted that the Democrats would eat themselves and emerge from the primary contest divided and bruised. Instead, a virtually unknown peanut farmer and former Georgia governor named Jimmy Carter used a novel campaign strategy to win the Democratic nomination, then united his party and beat incumbent President Gerald Ford (R).

There are some similarities in the slate of candidates — the establishment flameouts, the successful mavericks — but also "numerous differences between the Democratic competition in 1976 and the Republican contest today," Zelizer warns.

In 1976, the Republicans were badly damaged by Watergate and the state of the economy. Plus, the Democratic victor faced a Republican candidate who was barely standing as a result of the bruising attacks he endured from Ronald Reagan in the GOP primaries and some major stumbles he made in the fall, such as asserting during the single televised debate, and in the middle of the Cold War, that the Soviets did not dominate Eastern Europe. [Zelizer, in Politico]

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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