Numerous setbacks, both domestic and international, contributed to President Jimmy Carter's 1980 defeat at the hands of GOP challenger Ronald Reagan, making Carter a one-term president
In his one term in the White House, the late President Jimmy Carter struck the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, helped take the world further from nuclear proliferation with the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty , signed the Panama Canal Treaties, which ended a century of direct American control over the crucial canal, and deregulated the nation's airline industry.
Adding to Carter’s woes, was the overrunning of the American embassy in Tehran in the late autumn of 1979, which triggered the more than yearlong Iranian hostage crisis. Carter, politically weakened by a fierce and nearly successful primary challenge by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination, was crushed by GOP nominee Ronald Reagan in the general election, with the former California governor sweeping 44 of the 50 states.
Veteran political scientist Wayne Lesperance, president of New England College, concurred. 'While it is certainly true that the Carter Administration had its share of successes, such as the Camp David Accords and the Panama Canal Treaty, in the months leading up to the 1980 election, voters were focused on high inflation, low economic growth, an energy crisis and the growing perception that American power and influence in the world was in decline,' Lesperance said.
But it’s the 'malaise' speech that still stands out more than four decades after Carter’s stinging rejection by American voters. 'Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency would be known for many things: stagflation, a terrible economy, weakness in the face of Soviet advances, but also the Camp David Accords and ushering in the Age of Reagan.
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