A personal interest of mine is reading about old elections - for whatever reason, I think they're really interesting! Anyway, when I was reading this NPR article about Carter wanting Biden to give his eulogy, it stated that Biden was "the first elected official outside of Georgia to endorse Carter's [1976] run for president". That's kinda wild! Naturally, I wanted to find more details about it.
I found some info, but I could not find what I was really looking for, a long article discussing the full circumstances and reasoning behind Biden's endorsement, its effect if any on the dark horse Carter campaign and Biden's reputation at the time, and maybe some not-really-justified commentary about how this may have led to Biden's rise fifty years later. Alas.
I'm hoping the market can find me some answers! To make this more specific, I've written 7 questions (well, 6 questions and a bonus challenge) I'm curious about. Resolves to the number of these questions which I feel I have satisfactory answers to by market close (at 6pm PDT on Sat., April 15, in about a month - I'm experimenting with midday close times). Some of these should be relatively easy, while some may take more digging or even creativity. I will only give points for an answer that satisfies my curiosity on that question.
TIMELINE: When did Biden actually endorse Carter? This would imply which point in the primaries, which would imply how much Biden was sticking his neck out with the endorsement.
REASONING: Why did Biden endorse Carter before all the other non-Georgian elected officials? Both official reasons and potential more cynical ones - right now I don't have a good sense of why Biden made his choice.
OTHER ENDORSEMENTS: Were there other elected officials outside Georgia who endorsed Carter soon after Biden, or was he alone for awhile?
EFFECT ON CARTER: What effect, if any, did this have on the 1976 Carter campaign? (Did it give him a boost in the primaries? In Delaware? Make him more acceptable with party elites? Maybe nothing?)
EFFECT ON BIDEN: What effect, if any, did this have on Biden's immediate political career? (Did he get any rewards in the Carter administration? Did he get flack for endorsing an unpopular president? Both? Neither?)
COINCIDENCE?: How coincidental is it that the first non-Georgian elected official to endorse such an unlikely candidacy later went on to be VP and president? Maybe it's a total coincidence, but maybe there are some arguments to be made that it reveals something broader about Biden. I'm willing to consider both options.
BONUS FUN FACT: What cool fun fact about this situation do I not know? (This may be impossible if there don't exist any sufficiently cool fun facts.)
Details from My Research So Far
However, the Wikipedia articles on the 1976 primaries, Carter's 1976 campaign, and Biden himself all have nothing to say about it. I did find a bit of info: this AP article says it was March 25, 1976 when Biden went to Wisconsin to campaign for Carter. It includes this Biden quote: "Some of my colleagues in the Senate thought it was youthful exuberance ... I was exuberant, but as I said then, Jimmy’s not just a bright smile. He can win and he can appeal to more segments of the population than any other person. ... Gov. Carter proved me right."
According to this primary calendar, that date was after a lot of primaries, so Carter would've been the frontrunner then, and presumably Biden actually made the endorsement prior to March 25 if he was the first elected official outside Georgia.
There's this LA Times article, which doesn't discuss the endorsement directly but does suggest that Biden learned the importance of politicking from Carter, and also sought to distance himself from Carter fairly soon after he was inaugurated: "'The president is learning, but not fast enough', he [Biden] said in 1977. 'Nixon had his enemies list and President Carter has his friends list. I guess I’m on his friends list, and I don’t know which is worse.'"
Anyway, that's all I got. I'm excited for what this market turns up!
General policy for my markets: In the rare event of a conflict between my resolution criteria and the agreed-upon common-sense spirit of the market, I may resolve it according to the market's spirit or N/A, probably after discussion.
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Great to synthesize all this research (and believe you me this is an honest good faith synthesis)
TIMELINE: Biden was the first Senator to endorse Jimmy Carter, endorsing him on March 25, 1976.
REASONING: Four theories arose from my newspaper research, they both appealed to young folk, they both ran on a message of honesty, Biden thought Carter was the most qualified, and Biden thought that George Wallace was a terrible choice. I personally like the honesty theory, though the latter 2 were explicitly stated by Biden.
OTHER ENDORSEMENTS: A buncha endorsements before Biden and a buncha endorsements after Biden.
EFFECT ON CARTER: in my opinion through reading through all these articles is the biggest effect that the endorsement had on Carter, was Biden joining his team. He campaigned for Carter talking to important people like Gov. Shapp, and other campaigning he did for Carter was considered important enough to be mentioned in newspapers, so it prolly was somewhat helpful.
EFFECT ON BIDEN: Beyond the things mentioned above, Carter campaigned for Biden in his 1978 Senate Re-election campaign (though this did not have any real effect, Biden was gonna win by a ton either way). He did not get Carter’s endorsement for his 1988 Presidential campaign. Also in 1980, some German diplomat wanted to talk to him, though that seems unrelated. I can’t find any evidence of his endorsement of Carter changing his popularity in the short term in either direction. I’d personally guess that it made him slightly more popular, but that’s just a moderately educated guess that isn’t really based on anything beyond “my intuition.”
COINCEDENCE: I think the strongest case for it not being a coincidence is the article which argues that Biden endorsed Carter due to their shared emphasis on honesty and sincerity rather than particular policy. I kinda get the vibes of Biden running on personality these days. I guess another argument against coincidence is that “ability to be the first to endorse a winner” is prolly positively correlated with political acumen. Overall, I think that it’s definitely not a causal coincidence perhaps there’s some correlations making it less correlation, but I think that those are rather weak explanations.
BONUS FUN FACT: Jimmy Carter Likes Frogs!
@JoshuaB Thanks! I'm calling this done, especially since you've done so much good work. Although my official BONUS FUN FACT is that the newspapers spread LIES AND SLANDER (incorrectly said Biden was the first elected official outside Georgia). And I do kind of think it's a coincidence. But maybe there are some factors!
This article seems to argue that their similar ways of running their campaign on “trust” is why Biden endorsed Carter
Also, in terms of political benefits Carter campaigned for Biden’s Senate re-election in 1978
This article had a hilarious way of framing that endorsement!
This endorsement was, admittedly apparently kinda unneeded, though this does draw a direct link between Biden’s endorsement and the “political repayment"
Furthermore, Carter did not endorse Biden in the 1988 Democratic Presidential Primary, though made statements indicating that he thought that Biden would do well if Sam Nunn did not run
In terms of responsibilities that Biden had, he represented Carter for Pennsylvania Governor Milton J. Shapp (with the most relevant quote “doubly excerpted")
Apparently, some West German diplomat wanted to speak to Biden and Biden alone. I don’t think that this is related to Biden’s endorsement, but I include it for completeness.
OTHER ENDORSEMENTS:
(making a separate comment chain for this)
The same day (March 26th, 1976) that Biden endorsed Carter, Former US Senator Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania endorsed him:
Seems like there’s no further endorsements during the month of March, now to April!
These are all the endorsements for Carter that I could find in the month of April, 1976. I at some point got lazier with checking for specific dates on more minor endorsements, so they’re not included.
April 1, Mayor Pete Flaherty of Pittsburgh announces endorsement of Carter
April 4, Detroit Mayor, Coleman Young announces support for Carter
April 9, Former Speaker of the Texas House Price Daniel Jr endorses Carter
April 11, House Democratic Floor Leader Bobby Richardson, and “five Jefferson County officials” endorse Carter
April 13, Carter is endorsed by Martin Luther King Sr.
April 16, Governor Julian M. Carol of Kentucky endorses Carter
April 20, Representative Jack Flynt of Georgia endorses Carter
April 21, Representative Jack Brinkley of Georgia endorses Carter
April 26, Former Detroit Mayor Jerome Cavanagh endorses Carter
April 26, Representative Bill Stuckey of Georgia endorses Carter
April 28–30th (unknown to me, HHH announced he wouldn’t run on April 28th, article published April 30th), Brendan Byrne
Current status:
TIMELINE: Definitively answered: the endorsement actually occurred on March 25th, deep into the primary calendar!
REASONING: Some progress, but I'd like to see more. Biden said Carter is a winner, but why was he the first senator? It does seem like Carter did well with younger people (also getting the youngest governor's endorsement), but it's still a bold move for Biden.
OTHER ENDORSEMENTS: Mostly answered, but not fully. Lots of progress is being made here on the backward direction, but part of the question also concerned endorsements made shortly after Biden's.
EFFECT ON CARTER: No answers so far, but research on the other questions suggests it's tractable.
EFFECT ON BIDEN: Some progress, but I'd like to see more. Biden got on the steering committee, but what's a steering committee? What was he actually doing?
COINCIDENCE?: No answers so far, though the young-people pattern does tell a bit of the story I guess.
BONUS FUN FACT: Definitively found: it's pretty shocking that the newspapers were actually wrong and Biden wasn't the first elected official outside Georgia!
Overall that's 2 done, 3 partially done, and 2 not done but tractable-seeming. I'm hopeful!
@Conflux I know that you said that the fun fact is already found, and that this wouldn't count anyway... but did you know that Jimmy Carter Likes Frogs?
@JoshuaB Oh, yeah, for EFFECT ON BIDEN, he became the chairman of Carter's steering committe (in the screenshot as well)
@JoshuaB Ooh smart! I didn't think about Google Books.
I can't believe it was actually March 25th! Carter won a lot of primaries and was the frontrunner without any endorsement from any elected leader outside of Georgia, I guess? Crazy stuff.
This answers TIMELINE. I don't think it fully answers EFFECT ON BIDEN, I'd like to know more about Biden's role on the steering committee and afterward. Also, what a steering committee is.
Perhaps his endorsement had to do with his freshmen senator status?? I’m kinda surprised that he had any sort of ability to “nominate a VP pick,” though it wasn’t Carter’s eventual choice of Mondale.
Also, I’m not sure that he was actually the first non-Georgian politician to endorse Carter! This article from March 29th seems to imply that maybe David Boren, Oklahoma Governor was earlier, though “more research is needed” to see the timeline on who came first:
@JoshuaB Big if true! In addition to NPR, I definitely saw multiple sources claiming he was the first elected official outside Georgia (and didn’t see anything claiming he was the first senator, which seems to be true) so it’d be crazy if they’re actually lying! But that phrasing sure does imply to me that Boren was first. I guess Carter was doing well with The Youths?