Source: Stuart Eizenstat. President Carter - The White House Years (2018)
In a space of only about ten weeks in 1979, from July 1979 through mid-September, the Carter administration started to unravel due to events that were basically unprecedented during peacetime: the Iranian Hostage Crisis, and skyrocketing gas prices and shortages that led to long lines of consumers waiting to gas up their cars. The gasoline situation in particular led Carter to cancel a TV address on energy, and he retreated to Camp David to reassess and “reset” his Presidency. Carter opened himself up to a new level of criticism when he invited prominent and average Americans to Camp David to pick their brains in order to get all the information he needed to solve the biggest problem of them all: what’s wrong with America?
The result was his most successful and controversial speech, his “Crisis of Confidence” speech, or as the media called it, the “Malaise Speech”. Ironically, the word malaise never appeared in Carter’s address to the nation; for quite some time, it remained a mystery how a negative word became associated with an upbeat speech. In a memo to Pat Caddell, the President’s pollster, Carter used the word malaise as almost an afterthought, and Caddell passed the memo to Elizabeth Drew of The New Yorker, and she used the word in print for the first time in describing Carter’s speech. The word malaise went viral in the media, and that word is still associated with Carter.
The result was his most successful and controversial speech, his “Crisis of Confidence” speech, or as the media called it, the “Malaise Speech”. Ironically, the word malaise never appeared in Carter’s address to the nation; for quite some time, it remained a mystery how a negative word became associated with an upbeat speech. In a memo to Pat Caddell, the President’s pollster, Carter used the word malaise as almost an afterthought, and Caddell passed the memo to Elizabeth Drew of The New Yorker, and she used the word in print for the first time in describing Carter’s speech. The word malaise went viral in the media, and that word is still associated with Carter.
After the televised address, Carter politically shot himself in the foot by firing his Cabinet and then bringing most of them back, which confused the public he wanted to rally behind him. Carter faced a near-mutiny from VP Mondale, who kept his vehement point-of-view private, even from Carter. Ironically, it was during this phase of his Presidency that Carter made his smartest move, appointing Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. When the ten week period was over on 14 September 1979, Carter’s poll numbers were the lowest of any President in the last thirty years, and Senator Ted Kennedy (D; MA) believed that he had the opening he had been waiting for to pursue to Democratic nomination in 1980.
So much of what happened involved involved Pat Caddell, who technically wasn’t part of the Carter administration. In 1972, Caddell worked as a pollster for George McGovern’s campaign, and when McGovern came through Georgia to campaign, Governor Carter and Caddell first talked politics together, and it wasn’t long before Carter wanted Caddell in his campaign. Caddell believed that there was a profound sense of alienation towards the government in the American public, a mixed message of despair and hope; Caddell believed that Carter was the right politician at the right time to be elected President (by 2016, Caddell had moved into the orbit of Donald Trump, and was one of the few pollsters to predict a Trump victory, largely because he believed, as in the late-1970s, that a critical mass of Americans still hated/distrusted DC).
So much of what happened involved involved Pat Caddell, who technically wasn’t part of the Carter administration. In 1972, Caddell worked as a pollster for George McGovern’s campaign, and when McGovern came through Georgia to campaign, Governor Carter and Caddell first talked politics together, and it wasn’t long before Carter wanted Caddell in his campaign. Caddell believed that there was a profound sense of alienation towards the government in the American public, a mixed message of despair and hope; Caddell believed that Carter was the right politician at the right time to be elected President (by 2016, Caddell had moved into the orbit of Donald Trump, and was one of the few pollsters to predict a Trump victory, largely because he believed, as in the late-1970s, that a critical mass of Americans still hated/distrusted DC).
When Carter became President, Caddell kept running his own firm (Cambridge Survey Research) and served as a consultant to the administration. Caddell on average spent several days a month at the White House, and he kept his ey on his visionary concepts that he had gleaned from his polling. So while Caddell wasn’t in Carter’s Circle of Trust, it would turn out that he could alter the landscape for Carter, in that it was Caddell’s interpretation of the polling data that mattered more than actually serving the President. While Carter was trying to solve major problems on behalf of the nation, Caddell kept making end-runs around Carter and the top officials in the administration in order to advance his agenda (especially talking to the First Lady, Rosalynn Carter). And, as it turned out, Carter would often enough follow Caddell’s advice.
Caddell was puzzled over Carter’s diminishing support/popularity despite significant achievements on multiple fronts, and he concluded that Carter had become a hostage of Washington, D.C., Polls as early as December 1977 indicated that Americans liked Carter, but had increasingly negative attitudes about his performance as President. By April 1978, Caddell was convinced that Carter needed to return to his 1976 “thematic” campaign style as President, and stated so in a memo.
Caddell was puzzled over Carter’s diminishing support/popularity despite significant achievements on multiple fronts, and he concluded that Carter had become a hostage of Washington, D.C., Polls as early as December 1977 indicated that Americans liked Carter, but had increasingly negative attitudes about his performance as President. By April 1978, Caddell was convinced that Carter needed to return to his 1976 “thematic” campaign style as President, and stated so in a memo.
In response to Caddell’s memo, Carter convened his administration and Cabinet at Camp David on 16 and 17 April 1978 for a “stocktaking”. The main topic was how to improve the administration’s political performance, and among other blunt observations by Carter, he stated that he and everyone else needed to be more clear on their priorities/themes, in particular when presenting them to the media and Congress. A significant result of the meeting was that Carter ended his experiment of “Cabinet Government” (a la European nations), but Carter still refused to have a Chief of Staff.
Another result of the results of the meeting was that a colleague of Caddell was invited into to serve within the administration, but Caddell had not been invited to do so. So Caddell had, for the time-being at least, an axe to grind with Carter, thinking that the President didn’t truly appreciate his talents, insights, and expertise. Caddell’s polling data picked up an alarming decline in not only Carter’s performance but also a decrease in confidence in the US, both politically and in terms of the nation’s future, which had never been seen in polls going back to the 1940s. Caddell concluded that there were more pessimists than optimists in the US, and he wondered why that was the case . . . it was, according to Caddell, that people were being more selfish, hostile, greedy, thinking only in the short-term. For Carter, who was groping and grasping for a new theme in which to rebuild the foundation of his Presidency, restoring confidence and trust in the government and political process became a new focus.
Another result of the results of the meeting was that a colleague of Caddell was invited into to serve within the administration, but Caddell had not been invited to do so. So Caddell had, for the time-being at least, an axe to grind with Carter, thinking that the President didn’t truly appreciate his talents, insights, and expertise. Caddell’s polling data picked up an alarming decline in not only Carter’s performance but also a decrease in confidence in the US, both politically and in terms of the nation’s future, which had never been seen in polls going back to the 1940s. Caddell concluded that there were more pessimists than optimists in the US, and he wondered why that was the case . . . it was, according to Caddell, that people were being more selfish, hostile, greedy, thinking only in the short-term. For Carter, who was groping and grasping for a new theme in which to rebuild the foundation of his Presidency, restoring confidence and trust in the government and political process became a new focus.
On 22 January 1979, Caddell’s “restoring confidence” via a firm thematic foundation memo circulated within the administration, which was a contributing factor why Caddell was in Carter’s “dog house” until Spring 1979 after the formal signing of the treaty between Israel and Egypt (Caddell must have been out of the “dog house”, since Carter introduced Caddell to Anwar Sadat). But even when he was back in Carter’s good graces, Caddell still kept working around Carter by going to Rosalynn. Finally, on 28 April 1979, Carter agreed to give Caddell his day in court in the Oval Office, and Carter fell under Caddell’s spell that day.
Vice-President Walter Mondale thought that Caddell was selling a bunch of nonsense, since he believed the pollster lived in the Ivory Tower instead of the Real World, but most those in Carter’s administration at that point had bought into Caddell’s thematic vision. Additional polls by Caddell (and others) had Carter at 30% approval, lower than Nixon’s rating during the nadir of the Watergate Scandal. On 12 June 1979, Carter decided to include Caddell in his Circle of Trust. Carter was all-in on Caddell’s vision, and the President agreed to hear out expert scholars that Caddell had lined up, including the author of The Culture of Narcissism, which depicted Americans as a self-indulgent society . . . but Carter had already come to the same conclusion before he listened to the scholar.
Vice-President Walter Mondale thought that Caddell was selling a bunch of nonsense, since he believed the pollster lived in the Ivory Tower instead of the Real World, but most those in Carter’s administration at that point had bought into Caddell’s thematic vision. Additional polls by Caddell (and others) had Carter at 30% approval, lower than Nixon’s rating during the nadir of the Watergate Scandal. On 12 June 1979, Carter decided to include Caddell in his Circle of Trust. Carter was all-in on Caddell’s vision, and the President agreed to hear out expert scholars that Caddell had lined up, including the author of The Culture of Narcissism, which depicted Americans as a self-indulgent society . . . but Carter had already come to the same conclusion before he listened to the scholar.
It was at that point that Caddell went for broke trying to get Carter and his top advisers to be the Carter et al of 1976 instead of the Carter et al of 1977 - 1979. By then gas prices had risen 50% in a year, and Caddell basically told the President to come back from his vacation in Hawaii or don’t come back at all. Even Stuart Eizenstat
(a top Carter adviser and the author of the book listed above) demanded that Carter return in order to give a nationwide speech on the energy crisis. Caddell believed, however, that another speech on energy would fall on deaf ears, and he made yet another end-run to Rosalynn, trying to get Carter to see that the crisis of confidence needed to be addressed instead; by then some of Carter’s top men also agreed with Caddell (e.g. Hamilton Jordan).
On 23 April 1979, Caddell wrote a memo titled “Of Crises and Opportunities” where he outlined that the crisis of confidence in America had led to a dwindling of faith in the future, and people were struggling to define and understand the malaise which they felt. Caddell in no way blamed Carter for that malaise; rather, he argued that over twenty years of historical forces had not come home to roost on the President’s doorstep. It was a conclusion that Carter wholeheartedly believed, even though the stance was at least partially psychobabble from the academic Ivory Tower that argued for “transformative leadership” to greater levels of motivation and morality. To Caddell, Carter had an opportunity that should not be wasted to create a historical imprint like Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy.
(a top Carter adviser and the author of the book listed above) demanded that Carter return in order to give a nationwide speech on the energy crisis. Caddell believed, however, that another speech on energy would fall on deaf ears, and he made yet another end-run to Rosalynn, trying to get Carter to see that the crisis of confidence needed to be addressed instead; by then some of Carter’s top men also agreed with Caddell (e.g. Hamilton Jordan).
On 23 April 1979, Caddell wrote a memo titled “Of Crises and Opportunities” where he outlined that the crisis of confidence in America had led to a dwindling of faith in the future, and people were struggling to define and understand the malaise which they felt. Caddell in no way blamed Carter for that malaise; rather, he argued that over twenty years of historical forces had not come home to roost on the President’s doorstep. It was a conclusion that Carter wholeheartedly believed, even though the stance was at least partially psychobabble from the academic Ivory Tower that argued for “transformative leadership” to greater levels of motivation and morality. To Caddell, Carter had an opportunity that should not be wasted to create a historical imprint like Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy.