There is a reason why Christians saw Carter as a public Christian and Reagan as a practicing Christian, that drove the media crazy who would point out how visually Christian Carter is.
There are cracks in Carter’s image, he was pro-abortion, he left the Southern Baptists because they were too Christian and he joined a less Christain church, and he made big publicity dumping on Evangelicals and their support of Christian positions in politics and government.
Carter several times attacked Reagan in the 80s in vile little digs, revealing a nasty, back-biting personality that he fights to conceal.
Carter always seems calculating and against the very things that he sells on the surface to the public, with his saintly Southern image, even his military service.
Carter was a high school graduate when Pearl was bombed, unlike Ford, JFK, Reagan, Nixon, Carter signed up for Georgia Southwest State, then Georgia Tech, and eventually the Naval Academy in 1943 with a graduation date of 1947, that careful avoidance of the war may mean nothing, but it could also fit into the way that Carter operates on two levels.
Carter’s big mistakes were not really mistakes, they were Carter’s politics.
“ Carter’s big mistakes were not really mistakes, they were Carter’s politics.”
Equally true of Joe and Obama…the Bushes as well.