When Harry Met Jimmy…

((President Jimmy Carter convenes the opening meeting of the first Presidential Commission on Hunger in 1978. Harry Chapin, who persuaded Carter to create the first — and only — Hunger Commission of it’s kind in US History, is the bushy haired guy pictured in the top right of the photo. Bess Myerson, former NYC Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, who never attended another meeting, is seated in the white jacket, in the center of the photo.)

As former President Jimmy Carter has been quietly been teaching all of us a daily lesson on the dignity of dying after living a deeply purposeful and humanitarian life, many of us have been reexamining our own lives.

I was never a Carter fan. I thought he was too conservative; too much of an incrementalist; not the kind of tough, crusading advocate for justice, human rights and the law that many of us Democratic activists craved, following the terrible and corrupt times of Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew and Watergate. Foreshadowing Elizabeth Warren by some 40 years, we wanted fundamental change.

Post-presidency, Carter would grow into a towering international human rights leader, and as a Jew uncomfortable with Israel’s lurch into right-wing fundamentalism, I applauded his early and courageous conclusion that the Israeli government’s deprivation of equal rights for Arab-born Israelis and Palestinians, amounted to Apartheid. Other Jews condemned Carter for his candor.

But, back in 1974, Democrats, across the country swept into near veto-proof power in Congress in the mid-term elections, adding 49 new seats in the House, giving them a commanding 291-seat majority; in the Senate, Democrats picked up 4 seats, producing a filibuster-proof majority of 61. With the rise of progressivism in Congress , we did not want a milquetoast candidate for President in 1976, even if the candidate were a Washington outsider with a winning smile who promised he’d never lie to us.

Many of us in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party wanted a tough champion like Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma, or Rep. Mo Udall from Arizona to lead the Democratic National ticket in 1976. We wanted a presidential candidate who would represent the growing sense of urgency among our rank-and-file to bring about sweeping change. To us, Jimmy Carter was just far too cautious.

We weren’t alone. Even singer/songwriter Harry Chapin, who persuaded Jimmy Carter to create the nation’s first and only Hunger Commission and served on that unique Commission from 1978–1980, had his doubts. Chapin was a delegate to the 1976 Democratic National Convention for the fiery liberal and environmental advocate Rep. Mo Udall, who advocated breaking up Big Oil and enacting National Health Insurance. Udall finished second to Jimmy Carter in six…