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Diffident at first about politics, Rosalynn soon learned how to be at home on the hustings. Her delivery is like her husband's: softspoken, low-keyed but highly persuasive. Today her status is separate but equal. She and Jimmy campaign apart and take turns going home to Plains each week for two or three days of rest and recuperation and family renewal. "What I liked about the Navy," says Rosalynn, "is what I like about politics. You see your old friends again and again—those with whom you have shared experiences."
In 1952, Carter was picked for the nuclear submarine program by Admiral Hyman Rickover, who later assigned him to the prelaunch crew of the submarine Seawolf. "Rickover transformed my life," says Carter. "He was unbelievably hard-working and competent, and he demanded total dedication from his subordinates." Today, Carter's aides consider him just as much of a taskmaster as Rickover; the two men often meet.
Lieutenant Carter's naval career ended abruptly in 1953 when his father died. Jimmy was needed at home to run the family peanut and fertilizer business. He regretted leaving the Navy, but he was also nursing ambitions for public office. Back home, he immersed himself in farming; he attended classes on farming, devoured books, sought advice from U.S. agricultural agents. Impatient to expand, he invested in a peanut sheller and began to supply large processors; then he branched out into warehousing. (Last year the income from the farm and the warehouse totaled $44,523; his net worth is estimated at $666,000.)
Not satisfied with just peanuts, Carter worked on many community projects. As a deacon in the Southern Baptist church, he taught Sunday school and traveled to Pennsylvania and Massachusetts to organize new churches. In 1962 he decided to run for the state senate, and he was defeated—until it was proved that the cemeteries as well as the jails had produced votes for his opponent. The results were overturned and Carter entered the legislature.
He disliked the tussle and compromise of the senate and considered himself more of an executive, so he jumped into the gubernatorial race in 1966. Coming almost from nowhere, he finished a respectable third in the primary that was ultimately won by ax-handle-wielding Segregationist Lester Maddox. For Carter, that campaign was only a warmup. To prepare for the race four years ahead, he steeped himself in the history of Georgia, pored over state budgets and education bills, shook all the hands that he could find.
The 1970 gubernatorial campaign is the most questionable aspect of Carter's career. It was rough and dirty on both sides. Carter's opponent was former Governor Carl Sanders, a New South liberal who had the backing of the Atlanta Establishment, the city's newspapers and the black community. Carter positioned himself as a populist to the right of Sanders. For the entire campaign, "CuffLinks Carl" was derided as a tool of the moneyed interests. It was a bitter contest to determine which was the less wealthy candidate—and by any standards, Carter was well off.