Carter Conservatism

Jimmy Carter

It was delivered as the Carter presidency was beginning to crater, as the turmoil of the Iranian Revolution caused oil prices to rise, and gas shortages once again afflicted the nation as they had six years before during the Yom Kippur War. Anger over higher prices and long lines at the pumps threw the administration into disarray. Carter wanted to make another speech on the energy crisis, the fifth of his presidency. But his advisers thought it would be ignored, if not ridiculed. Only something bolder, broader, and different from any speech hitherto made by a president could transform the situation. As Pat Caddell, the president