UnNews:Carter considers 2016 presidential run

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17 January 2013

Former (and future?) president Jimmy Carter

Atlanta, Georgia USA -- Sources close to Jimmy Carter (D) have suggested that the former president is considering throwing his hat into the ring for the 2016 presidential election.

"Former president Carter hasn't officially made a decision, but he may considering looking into possibly running for president in 2016," said an anonymous source. As a note to our international reader, it is an American custom to begin speculation on the next presidential election as soon previous one has ended. Presidential candidates traditionally hint at a desire to run for office before officially announcing their candidacy.

Carter, age 88, was president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, and also served as governor of Georgia. "Carter's age may be an issue," said one pundit, "However, the candidates being considered are also up in years. Former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton will be 69, the same as Ronald Reagan, in 2016. Vice President Joe Biden will be even older at 74, two years older than McCain was in 2008. Biden is actually closer to Jimmy Carter's than he is to Barack Obama's age, to put things in perspective."

"Carter, although he is up in years, would have many good qualities as a presidential candidate," he continued. "Compared to Biden, Carter is less of a Washington insider. Biden was in Senate from 1973, 4 years before Carter was elected president, until his election as vice president in 2009. Hillary Clinton, the other notable potential Democratic candidate at the moment, has been a bogeyman, if not THE bogeyman, of the right-wing for two decades now. Carter was able to appeal to southern white voters and Christians, while also appealing to anti-war activists and anti-war haters. He might even be able to run as an anti-Obama candidate. In the 1980 election, he ran against Reagan's irresponsible deficit spending, and would be the perfect Democratic insurgent against Obama's frighteningly irresponsible deficit spending."

Mrs. Clinton is not aging well

Some have questioned if Carter would have the mental sharpness to debate the 2016 Republican nominee. "I will grant you that Carter might not be as sharp has he was back in the 1970s," said the source. "However, the other potential Democratic nominees are not getting any younger. Hillary Clinton, in particular, is not aging very gracefully, she looks like she aged 2 decades in the past 4 years. If she continues to age at that rate, she will be effectively 101 in 2016, compared to a relatively youthful 92 for Carter. Joe Biden has never been articulate, and would probably fare worse than Carter," he continued.

Others have raised the issue of America's presidential term limits. Constitutionally, Carter could not run for reelection in 2020. However, some might consider this a good thing. According to one political analyst, "The party that in power in America only needs to seek for new candidates every other cycle. In many cases, the vice president is the heir apparent, as it were, of the sitting president, so the party in power often does not have a contested presidential primary even when term limits come into effect. According to conventional wisdom, contested primaries drain resources from the general election campaign, giving an advantage to the party with an uncontested primary."

"However, history does not seem to confirm that theory. The lack of contested primaries seems to create a 'nominee drought' effect, in which the public and punditry are no longer introduced to new potential candidates for long periods of time. This, in turn, causes the media to focus on candidates from distant cycles, simply because no new blood is coming into the system. Because political analysts need to talk about something, they will be forced to focus of older, well-known, but no longer viable candidates, especially early in the election cycle. Therefore, nominating Carter in 2016 might give the Democrats an advantage in the future."

Sources[edit]

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