Howard Norton on Jimmy Carter

“This, remember, was at a time when Senator Hubert Humphrey had quietly entered the stage door and was standing in the wings. It was a time when the wiser heads of the Democratic party were spreading word that Carter couldn't make it; when conventional wisdom was that he would emerge from the smoke-filled rooms as no more than the vice-presidential nominee. But in the elation of election night in Philadelphia it leaked out that the Carter camp's TV department was even further head of the political game than anybody had guessed. It was putting together at that moment a grand finale- a TV special to be flashed on a giant screen behind the speaker's rostrum the night that Governor Carter accepts the nomination. Now that is faith. Faith, in an important way, is self-fulfilling. It gave the Carter camp the confidence to move ahead, while others, more timid and less confident, waited for the verdict of the voters, and fell behind. So, when victory came, the Carter people were ready for it.”

“Jimmy Carter's faith in himself was the target of more verbal nonsense in the media than any other facet of the campaign. They wrote that he had "enormous certitude," whatever that means.”