Narrator: In the summer of 1976, with a huge lead in the polls the Democratic candidate could relax. The press descended on Plains, eager to learn about the peanut farmer who might become president, and the remote Southern town he called home.

Betty Glad: It was thought out and carefully planned by the campaign committee. As Jody Powell said, "Our campaign was not really about issues. It was about blue skies, where everybody knew each other and no pollution. That was it all the way." And so going into Plains you see blue skies, you see everybody in town seemed to love Jimmy, everybody was enthusiastic about him. So it was perfect.

Jody Powell: This was who he was. This is where he came from. The people in that town clearly saw him as one of them. That was a tremendous asset.

Betty Pope: When you're campaigning, every little picture in the paper, every little something, is free publicity. So we were trying to impress the people and trying to let them know what the real Plains was like. We went and took this empty depot and steam-cleaned it, and we brought furniture from our homes and pictures off the walls. Everybody just cooperated and wanted to help.

Narrator: Back home, surrounded by family and friends, Carter would display his best qualities.

Betty Glad: You would go to the church on Sunday and there would be Jimmy, and he'd have the lesson for the day. And he'd outline something. One time, he came out and he had underlined, "The Baptists believe in the separation of church and state." So he was safe on church issues. You might go out to the pond house and hear Jimmy Carter come out and say what he just heard from a group of experts, and like an A student in a seminar, tell you what everybody said with great clarity. And if you asked him a tough question, you got those cold blue eyes, and reporters would just shudder with delight. That look. And so you... you could see he'd be a tough son-of-a-bitch. So not only was he moral, and did he have all these people love him, but he would be tough.

Narrator: Carter's eccentric family provided color. Sister Gloria rode a Harley Davidson and was a born-again Christian. Sister Ruth was a charismatic Christian and popular faith healer. And holding forth at his filling station across from the Depot was Billy, Carter's hard drinking brother.

Billy Carter: My big advantage? Sam Donaldson was against me.

Betty Pope: Brother Billy. He was a sport. He was a very good businessman, and he was extremely colorful. And he was much brighter, much more learned and well read than most people think.

Chip Carter: He read a book every day. And had over 20,000 in his library stashed up in his attic when he died. Billy ended up with a reputation and then he tried to live up to it.

Narrator: Of all the Carters, it was the irrepressible Miss Lillian who best reflected on Jimmy. Since her husband's death, she had lived life on her own terms. Always committed to helping the poor, she had joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in India.

Doug Brinkley: There's that wonderful story of Miss Lillian when one reporter a woman from New York came down to Plains, and Miss Lillian greeted her and said, "Welcome to Plains. You know, it's so nice to see you. Would you like some lemonade? How was your journey, your dress is beautiful." You know, poring on the Southern hospitality. And the reporter jumped right in on Miss Lillian and said, "Now Miss Lillian, your son is running for president saying he'll never tell a lie. As a mother, are you telling me he's never told a lie?" She goes, "Oh well Jimmy tells white lies all the time." And the reporter said, well tell me what, what do you mean? What is a white lie?" And Miss Lillian said, "Well, remember when I said, welcome to Plains and how good it is to see you? That's a white lie."

Sam Donaldson (archival): Now, it's sometimes said that the parents are never really satisfied with what their children accomplish.

Lillian Carter (archival): I won't be satisfied until he gets in the White House.

Sam Donaldson (archival): Do you think he will?

Lillian Carter (archival): I know he will.

Sam Donaldson (archival): And then what are you going to do?

Lillian Carter (archival): I'm going stay at the Pond House and fish.

Carter (archival): This election means a lot to our country...

Narrator: Carter began the fall campaign against incumbent president Gerald Ford with a fifteen-point lead.

Carter (archival): We've been disappointed, disillusioned, we've been kept out of government. We've been embarrassed. Sometimes we've been ashamed...

Narrator: He returned to the themes of honesty and trust that had defined his primary campaign.

Gerald Ford (archival): Jimmy Carter will say anything, anywhere to be president of the United States.

Narrator: But as Election Day approached, he was pressured to take a stand on the issues.

Gerald Ford (archival): He wanders, he wavers, he waffles, and he wiggles. He isn't the man you want for president of the United States.

Bert Lance: He was a moderate to the moderates, he was a conservative to the conservatives, he was a liberal to the liberals. And in fact, he was all of those things.

Carter (archival): We are going to have a fair government once again, we are going a government that's open and not secret once again.

Joshua Muravchik, Coalition for a Democratic Majority: His standard line, when asked about his foreign policy was, that he wanted to provide a foreign policy as good as the American people. Well, gee, that's great, but what in the world does it mean?

Carter (archival): You can depend on me. You help me, I'll help you...

Betty Glad: The gist of what he presented was that he would be a centrist Democrat who had liberal values in his heart, as well as the desire for frugality and thrift and efficiency in government. And so he could appeal to people from all parts of the Democratic Party. But as Julian Bond said at one point, "The problem with this is, his support was an inch deep and a mile wide."

Narrator: Alarmed that support among liberal Democrats was eroding, Carter's young staff made a bold move.

Pat Caddell: We did the Playboy interview to show that that being a born-again Christian, was not a threat to more secular Democrats and young people.

Narrator: For five hours, Carter tried to explain his views on culture, politics and faith. Toward the end of the interview, exasperated at not being understood, he said, "I've looked on lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times."

Pat Caddell: If you read the interview, the "lust in your heart" line was to try to explain that he, too, was a sinner. But the language was -- and I would see this all the time, Carter used language that was germane to his world, like we all do, to our own cultural context.

Betty Glad: Here's a guy who is so moral that on the one hand he talks about, he's lusted after women in his heart, and he talks about shacking up, and he uses language that's going to really enrage and turn off a lot of people.

Doug Brinkley: Do not underestimate what a crisis that interview and the "lust in my heart" caused Carter. It almost derailed the entire Carter campaign. They were in havoc over it.

Pat Caddell: In retrospect it was kind of amusing. It wasn't very funny at the time. Trying to explain to people that Jimmy Carter was not some child molester, you know, I mean, or pervert.

Carter: The Playboy thing has been of very great concern to me. I don't know how to deal with it, exactly. I...

Narrator: By the time Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford met in the first of two presidential debates, Carter's lead had evaporated. The momentum belonged to Ford. Two weeks later he blundered.

Gerald Ford (archival): There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.

Debate panelist: Uh, I'm sorry, could I just follow, did I just understand you to say, sir, that the Russians are not using Eastern Europe as their own sphere of influence and...

Walter Mondale: We knew that this was going to hurt. That a lot of people couldn't see how a president would say that. It gave us about a week, as I recall, to pound away on this. And you could just feel people moving on that question. So what it did, I think, was rather than electing us, it stopped our slide.

Narrator: By Election Day, the polls showed a dead heat. It was not until 3am that the networks announced the winner -- by one of the closest margins in American history.

Pat Caddell: I look back now, I just-- I'm amazed. Going from total anonymity, to being president of the United States in less than twelve months, is unprecedented in American history. If it weren't for the country looking for something in '76, Carter could never have gotten elected. He would never have been allowed out of the box.

Doug Brinkley He offered a biography of what we wanted to hear; farmer, Main Street values, Plains. It was the right message at the right time. And it didn't happen by accident. Carter created that message, knowing that that's what would win the day.

Carter (archival): I came all the way through the 22 months, and I didn't get choked up until I... [he breaks down]