How rock and roll won Jimmy Carter the 1976 Presidential Election
Rock and roll has always had a relationship with the political realm in one form or another; during its early days, for instance, the conservative politicians of 1950s America rallied against the subversive sound for being ‘un-American’, meanwhile those behind the Iron Curtain banned rock for being overly American. However, never has rock’s relationship with politics been quite as close as during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
America was in something of a transitional state back in the mid-1970s. On one hand, the war in Vietnam had finally come to an end, albeit not the kind of end that certain Army generals and politicians might have been braying for. With the end of that conflict came the gradual disappearance of the hippie generation, whose youthful penchant for political protest and activism had slowly seeped away as they aged.
Yet, in a domestic sense, the country wasn’t in the greatest of states: emerging from a recession, with high levels of unemployment and a growing dissatisfaction among its people. In short, then, change was needed when it came to the 1976 presidential election. While all of the aforementioned socio-economic factors certainly played a role in how American citizens voted at the ballot box, another wholly unexpected factor in the election was the rock and roll realm.
Sitting president Gerald Ford had his own unique relationship with the music world, having rubbed shoulders with George Harrison and reprimanded his son for blasting Led Zeppelin from the White House roof. However, when the Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter announced his plans to run for office, he received a bizarrely important endorsement from the likes of the Allman Brothers, who went as far as to perform a benefit show raising money for his campaign.
Carter didn’t stop with the Allman Brothers, either. Leaning fully into this idea of being a ‘rock and roll president’, Carter began quoting Bob Dylan in his speeches and espousing his adoration for the songwriter, along with the likes of Willie Nelson, at every given opportunity. In fact, the politician even managed to spark a rather unlikely friendship with Dylan himself.
“When I first met Jimmy, the first thing he did was quote my songs back to me,” the songwriter recalled in the aptly-named 2020 documentary Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President. “It was the first time that I realised my songs had reached into the establishment world, and I had no experience in that realm, so it made me a little uneasy,” he explained.
“He put my mind at ease by not talking down to me and showing me that he had a sincere appreciation of the songs that I had written,” Dylan continued, showing his appreciation for the Democratic president. “He’s a kindred spirit to me.”
While it would be egregious to claim that Carter’s outspoken support of those previously counterculture icons, or the benefit concert organised by the Allman Brothers, won him the 1976 election outright, it undoubtedly had an impact. Never before in American politics had the younger generation of the States witnessed a presidential candidate whose cultural tastes they could relate to so directly.
Carter’s campaign was among the first instances of politicians deliberately attempting to capitalise on the success of the rock and roll realm, and to his credit, it certainly worked in his favour.
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