Many people liked what they heard. Carter won the Democratic primaries in Georgia, Alabama and Indiana. The other candidates fell hopelessly behind.

At the party convention, he was nominated on the first vote. In his acceptance speech, he repeated the line that he continually used with voters.

JIMMY CARTER: “My name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for president.”

Carter said there was a fear that America's best years were over. He said the nation's best was still to come.

CARTER: “Nineteen seventy-six will not be a year of politics as usual. It can be a year of inspiration and hope, and it will be a year of concern, of quiet and sober reassessment of our nation’s character and purpose, a year when voters have confounded the experts. And I guarantee you that it will be the year when we give the government of this country back to the people of this country.” [Cheering]

Walter Mondale, a senator from Minnesota, became the party's vice presidential candidate.

President Jimmy Carter, left, and Vice President Walter Mondale

(MUSIC)

A month before the Republican Party convention, Ronald Reagan made a costly political mistake. He said that, if he won the nomination, he would want Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as his running mate. Conservatives got angry. Schweiker was a liberal Republican. Some political observers say this is why Reagan lost the nomination to President Ford.