By ADAM SPECTOR
Former President Jimmy Carter has recently become more open about his views on current political events.
In addition to this, he was on a book tour earlier this year. Sitting and former politicians tend to release books before announcing presidential runs, creating some (seriously doubtful) speculation that Carter may run for president in 2020 although he will be 95.
Carter served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A Democrat, he previously served as a Georgia State Senator from 1963 to 1967 and as the 76th Governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975.
Carter was a one-term President and was succeeded by then California Gov. Ronald Reagan. Contrary to popular belief, a former president that lost re-election can in fact run again and this happened to Grover Cleveland, who was the 22nd and 24th president.
Carter was asked about running for president in 2020 when answering questions at a public event in Philadelphia.
“I believe I am qualified to run, but I am not going to run,” Carter said.
When on the “Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Carter was also asked about a possible 2020 run and received a massive applause from the audience.
“I think there’s an age limit to being president,” Carter said.
Colbert then handed the former president a “Carter 2020” T-shirt in case he changes his mind. Not a single mainstream news source of any kind has taken the possibility of Carter becoming the 46th president seriously.
Despite the fact that Carter has stated he does not plan to run in 2020, many of the most commonly talked about potential candidates have also denied they plan to run for president.
Television personality, actress and entrepreneur, Oprah Winfrey has said again and again that she will not run for president, yet countless news sources won’t accept her answer. They continue to talk about a President Oprah as if she’s announced she will run in 2020.
For some reason, nearly every news source has consistently been pushing Winfrey, Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and several other incredibly bad Democratic Party candidates for 2020 that stray too far from the mainstream Americans and would all but guarantee a second term of the Trump presidency.
This is very sad because the lack of coverage on these potentially strong candidates will hurt their chances of becoming their party nominee, while the weekly coverage of Oprah Winfrey, Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren from CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Boston Globe are essentially campaigning for these bad candidates.
If most news sources continue to ignore good candidates such as former Vice President Al Gore, Gov. Steve Bullock (D) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R) and constantly promote terrible candidates because they draw in audiences, they should talk about Jimmy Carter potentially running for president in 2020. This would draw in large audiences and he would still be a much better candidate and president than Booker, Harris, Warren or Kirsten Gillibrand because he actually cares about his country more than just gaining the “young liberal vote.” The constant coverage of Jimmy Carter would take away attention from the bad candidates and make room for the better candidates.