"So much of the literature on presidential influence on congressional voting relies on assertions and assumptions about presidential influence in Congress. This study measures actual presidential influence on a member by member basis. The discovery of the White House records on presidential calls to House members adds a whole new level of depth to our understanding of how the relatively unpopular Carter won those floor votes. This work adds broadly to the dynamics of presidential leadership in Congress. Jimmy Carter and the Water Wars makes a real contribution to the literature on presidential influence in Congress." - Lance T. LeLoup, Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Washington State University "Do you want to know how Washington really works? Read Frisch and Kelly's excellent and well-researched chronicle Jimmy Carter and the Water Wars. They bring to life the events surrounding a critical turning point in the Carter Presidency. This is required reading for anyone interested in presidential leadership in Congress." - Representative Butler Derrick, (D-South Carolina, retired) "Part political history, part political science, this engaging book does both well. Jimmy Carter and the Water Wars is an important addition to our understanding of the Carter presidency. It sheds new light on Carter's legislative leadership and, by focusing on the politics of pork, serves as a backdrop to ongoing debates over congressional expenditures. Combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, Frisch and Kelly not only tell a great story, but also systematically analyze the effect of Carter administration efforts to lobby members of Congress. The result is an important study of presidential influence in Congress." - John Anthony Maltese, Albert Berry Saye Professor of Political Science, University of Georgia

“Important . . . [a] landmark presidential biography . . . Bird is able to build a persuasive case that the Carter presidency deserves this new look.”—The New York Times Book Review An essential re-evaluation of the complex triumphs and tragedies of Jimmy Carter’s presidential legacy—from the expert biographer and Pulitzer Prize–winning co-author of American Prometheus Four decades after Ronald Reagan’s landslide win in 1980, Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency is often labeled a failure; indeed, many Americans view Carter as the only ex-president to have used the White House as a stepping-stone to greater achievements. But in retrospect the Carter political odyssey is a rich and human story, marked by both formidable accomplishments and painful political adversity. In this deeply researched, brilliantly written account, Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Kai Bird deftly unfolds the Carter saga as a tragic tipping point in American history. As president, Carter was not merely an outsider; he was an outlier. He was the only president in a century to grow up in the heart of the Deep South, and his born-again Christianity made him the most openly religious president in memory. This outlier brought to the White House a rare mix of humility, candor, and unnerving self-confidence that neither Washington nor America was ready to embrace. Decades before today’s public reckoning with the vast gulf between America’s ethos and its actions, Carter looked out on a nation torn by race and demoralized by Watergate and Vietnam and prescribed a radical self-examination from which voters recoiled. The cost of his unshakable belief in doing the right thing would be losing his re-election bid—and witnessing the ascendance of Reagan. In these remarkable pages, Bird traces the arc of Carter’s administration, from his aggressive domestic agenda to his controversial foreign policy record, taking readers inside the Oval Office and through Carter’s battles with both a political establishment and a Washington press corps that proved as adversarial as any foreign power. Bird shows how issues still hotly debated today—from national health care to growing inequality and racism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—burned at the heart of Carter’s America, and consumed a president who found a moral duty in solving them. Drawing on interviews with Carter and members of his administration and recently declassified documents, Bird delivers a profound, clear-eyed evaluation of a leader whose legacy has been deeply misunderstood. The Outlier is the definitive account of an enigmatic presidency—both as it really happened and as it is remembered in the American consciousness.

From a strange, dark chapter in American political history comes the captivating story of Ted Kennedy's 1980 campaign for president against the incumbent Jimmy Carter, told in full for the first time. The Carter presidency was on life support. The Democrats, desperate to keep power and yearning to resurrect former glory, turned to Kennedy. And so, 1980 became a civil war. It was the last time an American president received a serious reelection challenge from inside his own party, the last contested convention, and the last all-out floor fight, where political combatants fought in real time to decide who would be the nominee. It was the last gasp of an outdated system, an insider's game that old Kennedy hands thought they had mastered, and the year that marked the unraveling of the Democratic Party as America had known it. Camelot's End details the incredible drama of Kennedy's challenge -- what led to it, how it unfolded, and its lasting effects -- with cinematic sweep. It is a story about what happened to the Democratic Party when the country's long string of successes, luck, and global dominance following World War II ran its course, and how, on a quest to recapture the magic of JFK, Democrats plunged themselves into an intra-party civil war. And, at its heart, Camelot's End is the tale of two extraordinary and deeply flawed men: Teddy Kennedy, one of the nation's greatest lawmakers, a man of flaws and of great character; and Jimmy Carter, a politically tenacious but frequently underestimated trailblazer. Comprehensive and nuanced, featuring new interviews with major party leaders and behind-the-scenes revelations from the time, Camelot's End presents both Kennedy and Carter in a new light, and takes readers deep inside a dark chapter in American political history.

This illuminating biography of our thirty-ninth president by an acclaimed historian of American religion presents Jimmy Carter as the last great standard-bearer of progressive evangelical politics. Evangelical Christianity and conservative politics are commonly viewed today as inseparable. But when Carter, a Democrat and unabashed born-again Christian, won the presidency in 1976, he owed his victory in part to American evangelicals. Yet four years later, those very same voters abandoned Carter for Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party, signaling the eclipse of Christian progressivism by the Religious Right. Balmer briskly narrates Carter's religious and political development, his stunning rise from peanut farmer to Georgia governor to president of the United States, his accomplishments and missteps, and his swift fall from political grace. With a keen eye for the dynamic politics of the 1970s and '80s and the inner workings of right-wing religious organizing, Balmer provides a compelling account of an often-misunderstood moment in American political history, full of insight into the character and motivations of the nation's longest-lived president. Now in paperback for the first time, this edition includes a new afterword on the forces that led to Carter's 1980 defeat and the ways his policy priorities and values extended to his long career as a humanitarian and activist after leaving the White House.

Discusses how the progressive principles of a born-again Evangelical Christian peanut farmer, which included racial justice, women's rights and concern for the plight of the poor, won the presidency in 1976—a sharp contrast to today's conservative views of the Religious Right. 25,000 first printing.

Generations of Americans have seen the West as beyond federal control and direction. But the national government’s presence in the West dates to before Lewis and Clark, and since 1789 a number of U.S. presidents have had a penetrating and long-lasting impact on the region. In Presidents Who Shaped the American West, noted historians Glenda Riley and Richard W. Etulain present startling analyses of chief executives and their policies, illuminating the long reach of presidential power. The authors begin each chapter by sketching a particular president’s biography and explaining the political context in which he operated while in office. They then consider overarching actions and policies that affected both the nation and the region during the president’s administration, such as Thomas Jefferson’s augmentation of the West via the Louisiana Purchase, and Andrew Jackson’s removal of American Indians from the Southeast to “Indian Country” in the West. Abraham Lincoln’s promotion of the Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad, and western territories and states free of slavery marked further extensions of presidential power in the region. Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation efforts and Jimmy Carter’s expansion of earlier policies reflected growing public concern with the West’s finite natural resources and fragile natural environment. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Dwight D. Eisenhower’s highway program, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society funneled federal funding into the West. In return for this largesse, some argued, the West paid the price of increased federal hegemony, and Ronald Reagan’s presidency arguably curbed that power. Riley and Etulain also discuss the most recent presidential terms and the region’s growing political power in Congress and the federal bureaucracy. With an accessible approach, Presidents Who Shaped the American West establishes the crucial and formative nature of the relationship between the White House and the West—and will encourage readers to continue examining this relationship.