On Presidents Day 1978, Jimmy Carter boarded Marine One at the White House and flew to Wilmington, Del.
He was there to raise money for one of his first national political allies: the state's 35-year-old first-term senator, Joe Biden.
It was a joint appearance that underscored the unique relationship Biden developed with Carter early on in his political career — one that will be on display this week when Biden eulogizes Carter at Washington's National Cathedral.
"I've been hanging out with Jimmy Carter for over 50 years, it dawned on me," Biden said in remarks on Sunday from St. Croix, where he was on holiday.
"I'll always be proud to say that — he used to kid me about it — that I was the first national figure to endorse him in 1976 when he ran for president. And there was an overwhelming reason for it: his character."
Carter also fundraised for Biden. Back in 1978, Biden and his young sons met Carter's helicopter at the airport, and then Carter gave Biden a lift in the presidential limousine to the Hotel Du Pont.
The politics-averse Carter didn't do too many campaign events, let alone fundraising dinners. You could hear the excitement and pride in the young senator's voice as he thanked the crowd, who paid $1,000 a couple for coming out to help him "raise so much damn money."
"My sons, Beau and Hunt, were here, Mr. President," Biden beamed during his introductory remarks. "Met the president at the plane. But priorities are priorities," he told Carter and the donors. "They had their Cub Scout meeting tonight, Mr. President, and they said as far as they'd go was the helicopter. And when they found out Amy wasn't coming, they weren't even sure they were going to do that."
Carter and Biden were both political underdogs
When Carter spoke, he told the audience about the origins of the close relationship he had developed with Delaware's junior senator.
They had first met four years earlier, in 1974, when Carter was in the final full year of his one term as Georgia's governor. Biden had traveled to Atlanta to address a convention of young business leaders, the Jaycees. And Carter recalled that he couldn't get over Biden's youth.
"We got a chance to talk for several hours at the governor's mansion," said Carter. "I felt a little ill at ease. I thought that Joe should have been talking to my children instead of to me."
Even so, Biden had come with advice. Carter said the two men talked about the possibilities and realities of running outsider campaigns. He said Biden encouraged him to run for president, and had shared stories from his own underdog run for the Senate two years earlier, when Biden, then a 29-year-old county councilman, had ousted a well-known incumbent.
"I was so intrigued by Joe that I departed from my normal practice, which is to be polite, then withdraw. And I went to the Jaycee convention with him that night. And I listened to his speech," Carter said, as Biden and the audience laughed.
Carter went on to make a long-shot bid for the White House, and Biden became the first senator — and first politician outside of Georgia — to endorse him. Carter told the crowd that night how Biden ended up traveling all over the country on Carter's behalf.
"When I would go to Wisconsin and say, 'What can I do in this city to explain my position?' They would say, 'Well you don't have to explain your position. Joe Biden's already done it for you.' And when I would campaign in Pennsylvania in those tough days when Pennsylvania was the crucial primary, Joe Biden spent three times as many days and nights in Pennsylvania campaigning for me as I spent campaigning for myself," Carter said.
Carter often called Biden from the White House
The former president Joe Biden is most associated with is, of course, Barack Obama, whom Biden served as vice president for eight years. But back in the 1970s, he was a frequent visitor to the Carter White House.
"I saw Carter as a necessary transitional figure in the Democratic Party, which was losing middle-class working Americans," Biden recalled in his 2007 memoir, Promises To Keep. "I thought Carter could bridge the gaps in the party."
Biden's longtime adviser Ted Kaufman saw the Carter-Biden relationship develop first-hand. He said it was real and deep, and was strengthened by the fact that Jill Biden and Rosalynn Carter got along, too. "When you and your spouse both have a relationship with someone and their spouse, I have found over the years that's like a booster jet for a friendship," Kaufman said.
When Carter entered the White House, the young first-term Sen. Biden suddenly found himself as a key congressional point man for the president.
White House logs show Carter made frequent phone calls to Biden, including during the middle of the Camp David peace talks.
Biden was frequently in meetings at the Cabinet Room and Oval Office. In fact, Carter's daily White House diary from June 14, 1977, shows the president going directly from a meeting with Biden to an Oval Office chat with Johnny and June Carter Cash. (Later that evening, Carter spoke to Elvis Presley on the phone.)
Biden soaked it all in. "This was when he was still in his thirties. At a time when normally you don't get a chance to learn about these things at a high level," said Kaufman, who was staffing Biden at the time.
Biden was aware of Carter's shortcomings as president
Carter ultimately struggled in the White House. And in viewing that struggle from a front-row seat, Biden learned valuable lessons of what not to do in a position of leadership.
In his 2007 memoir, Biden wrote about how Carter avoided personal relationships with other politicians, and how he held deep grudges.
"Carter even had a way of making me feel like he couldn't trust me," Biden wrote. "In the meetings, I could see him ... tug at his cardigan sweater, and check the time." Biden said Carter also failed to fully consult and communicate with fellow world leaders.
These are things that Biden would take the opposite approach on as president, decades later.
Biden and Carter remained friends through the years, though, and stayed in close touch.
And on his 100th day in office — a symbolic point at which presidents often take stock of their progress — the Bidens flew to Plains, Ga., and spent some time with the Carters.
"Both of them, in times of trouble, reached out to each other. I think they had a deep personal relationship," Kaufman said. "Carter would call him and he would call Carter at times in their lives when it would be a good thing to have a call."
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