Rosalynn Carter: I was really shocked. I had no idea he was thinking about running for the state senate.

Narrator: The campaign that launched Jimmy Carter's political career lasted all of fifteen days. There was no money and no staff -- only family and friends, and his own determination. Though he would always play the reluctant politician, even by his first campaign, Carter was no stranger to politics.

Dan Carter: Politics was something he lived and breathed from the time he was a child, a kind of weekly, daily even, during election season, interaction. Barbecues. You gathered on the county courthouse grounds for speeches. He talks about going to rallies with his father, remembering them very well. And I think he came to see politics as something not alien, not something he had to make a decision to do, but was almost natural.

Narrator: "I received a startling education ..." he said, "one that set the tone for my future career."

Warren Fortson, Lawyer: Quitman County, historically, had been run by a man named Joe Hurst and Joe was not atypical for many, many small counties in the state, the poorer counties, you had one person who was a political power who just in effect kind of ran the county.

Narrator: Hurst was used to getting what he wanted, and in 1962 he wanted another Democrat, Homer Moore, to be elected Senator.

Warren Fortson: The ballot box was a liquor box, that had been taken and a hole cut in the top of it, so that you put your ballot over in there, after you -- and it sat up on the counter and you had to come up and mark your ballot right next to it with Joe and a bunch of his crowd watching, you know while your doing it.

Narrator: Fraud was rampant. Voters were threatened, ballots destroyed. Joe Hurst even stuffed ballots of dead voters into the Old Crow box. That evening, when the votes were counted, Jimmy Carter had lost. He decided to contest the election.

Dan Carter: By all accounts, even allowing for certain hyperbole in the memory of Mr. Carter this required an extraordinary kind of doggedness, just keeping at it keeping at it, and not giving up.

Narrator: Carter appealed to newspapers, filed for injunctions, took affidavits from voters. Miss Lillian kept saying, "Jimmy is so naive... so naive." There were threats against the Carters. Jimmy was followed. A stranger came by the Carter warehouse and warned Rosalynn that the last time anyone had crossed Joe Hurst, their business had burned down. "I was constantly scared," she later said. "Jimmy was frightened too." Two weeks later, a local judge agreed to hear Carter's case.

Warren Fortson: When it came time to open that box and recount it right there rolled up into a ball were all these ballots. And Judge Crow was a funny fellow. He chewed tobacco. And he had just cut off a little piece of tobacco and put it in his mouth and he was kind of putting it around. And I saw that and I saw him cut his eyes and stop chewing and then go back to chewing and sit back and right then is when I knew we had that thing won.

Narrator: On January 14, 1963, the morning after the traditional whiskey and barbecued wild hog dinner, Jimmy Carter was sworn in as a member of the Georgia Senate. He was one of 89 new legislators joining the Georgia Assembly. Many of them determined to change the old ways of Georgia politics.

Leroy Johnson, Georgia State Senator: I had the good fortune of being the first black to be elected to the General Assembly of Georgia in 100 years. Carter was one of those persons who came to the Senate at that time. And he was not a leader of the Senate. He was quiet. He was effective. He was deliberate and he made no waves.

Narrator: Carter opposed special interests and sweetheart deals. He worked hard and read every bill, staying away from drinking sprees and poker games.

Rosalynn Carter: In the last session of the state senate in his last year there, I was standing in the back of the senate chamber with him, and the lieutenant governor was going on and on and on, and it was bedlam, like the last day. And Jimmy said, "If I were lieutenant governor, this wouldn't be happening." And I thought, "Uh-oh. He's really enjoying this."

Narrator: In 1966, after two terms in the Georgia Senate, Jimmy Carter jumped into the race for governor of Georgia. He ran well behind arch-segregationist Lester Maddox, famous for wielding an ax handle to keep blacks away from his chicken restaurant. Carter left his younger brother Billy in charge of the business, while the rest of the family went on the road.

Chip Carter: I think I had 25 dollars a week for expenses to eat on and I had a gas credit card. And we came in every Saturday night and told what we'd been doing. It was a real education for all of us and we were doing it as a family.

Rosalynn Carter: I would come home and ask him questions that people had asked me while I was campaigning. And I didn't know the answers to. And he would give me the answers, so I could go back out and talk about issues. He had confidence in me to do the things that I needed to do.

Narrator: Carter promised better schools, better hospitals, better roads, and a more competent government. "It is hard to hear Senator Carter talk about state government and not be impressed by his integrity," one reporter wrote.

Dan Carter: You're not going to turn the apple cart upside down, but you're going to bring changes, you're going to bring improvements in the South. And you are going to do it by applying good sound business techniques to everything from the way you run your public institutions to the way you run your government.

Narrator: Carter took his message to every corner of Georgia. "We never stopped," Rosalynn recalled, "no matter what." By Election Day, he was closing in on the lead.

Chip Carter: We went to bed thinking we were going to win. Had gotten up and gone to school the next day, being congratulated about my father winning the primary, and then Billy came to the-- about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and told us that Lester Maddox had beat us by less than a half of a percentage point. So it was very disheartening.

Narrator: "We all felt sick," Rosalynn recalled. "We were $66,000 in debt and Jimmy had lost twenty-two pounds." After all the miles traveled, the handshakes the long days, Jimmy Carter was right back where he started when he first ran for the Senate in 1962.