Well yeah ... I guess my question should be, why the hell did the Democrats settle for Carter? At least Clinton had that used-car-salesman thing going for him, "I feel your pain" and all that. But even from a Dem's point of view, I can't see the appeal of Jimmy Carter.
The Dems didn't really have much to choose from at the time.
IIRC, Ted Kennedy was considered to be the front runner, but he either dropped out or lost some primaries (I am getting my elections mixed up, but in the 1970s, Teddy was always considered the Dem front runner until he either bowed out or the polls went against him).
He was the best they could come up with out of this group:
Birch Bayh - Senator from Indiana
Lloyd Bentsen - Senator from Texas
Jerry Brown - Governor of California
Jimmy Carter - Former Governor of Georgia
Frank Church - Senator from Idaho
Fred R. Harris - Former Senator from Oklahoma
Hubert H. Humphrey - Former Senator, Vice President from Minnesota
Henry Scoop Jackson - Senator from Washington
Ellen McCormack - New York
Robert Byrd - Senator from West Virginia, "favorite son" candidate
Terry Sanford - Former Governor of North Carolina
Milton Shapp - Governor of Pennsylvania
R. Sargent Shriver - Organizer and first director of the Peace Corps
Adlai Stevenson III - Senator from Illinois, "favorite son" candidate
Mo Udall - Representative from Arizona
George Wallace - Governor of Alabama
Watergate left the GOP in tatters. The press absolutely went to town, and used the scandal to indict the entire Republican party, to the last man. After Watergate, it was clear that, in 1976, the Republicans didn't have a prayer. That's why there were so many Democrat candidates; they knew whoever got the nomination would be president.
An explanation in detail of the mediocrity of each of the people on the above list would take too long. They weren't all serious, either. The front-runners as I recall (I was 21 and not very political then) were:
Jerry Brown, a kooky Californian who's nickname was "Moonbeam" and who, it was widely known, was doing the horizontal bop with Linda Ronstadt,
Hubert Humphrey, a retread from the '60's (he was LBJ's VP)
Mo Udall, the original "amiable dunce"
George Wallace, one of the best-known racists in America, who got shot and paralyzed at a rally in a shopping-mall parking lot during the campaign.
And, of course, Jimmy "Peanut" Carter, who's campaign plane was called "Peanut One." He spoke somewhat slowly, came off as sincere and down-to-earth, and had a geeky-looking teenaged daughter (well, she may have been a pre-teen during the campaign). All in all, he came off like the kind of guy-next-door President that might have been invented by the writers of one of the popular sitcoms of the time, say, Laverne and Shirley, or The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
He didn't generate much enthusiasm in the public, but the MSM wanted him, and, in those days, the MSM ruled.
(steely)