THE TRANSITION: Mr. Outside Is Moving In

It was a setting straight out of Gone With the Wind—literally. Georgia Senator Herman Talmadge's 143-year-old columned plantation house, set in a 2,500-acre pine forest and graced with magnolias, actually appeared in the film. Last week the place was the scene of a more modern drama as 16 Democratic leaders of Congress came calling to share grits and harmony with the first Deep Southerner to be elected President since the Civil War.

Not Humble. Rather than drag the whole group to remote Plains, Ga., Jimmy Carter instead deferentially flew up to the appropriately...