Atlanta editorial cartoonist set the standard for Jimmy Carter
When President Jimmy Carter helped forge an unlikely peace deal between Israel and Egypt at Camp David in 1978, Atlanta newspaper editorial cartoonist Clifford “Baldy” Baldowski sketched a panel that is now preserved at the Carter Presidential Library.
The drawing depicts Carter walking with Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel under a row of portraits of former presidents who gaze on the three with astonishment. The caption: “Jimmy Carter did WHAT?”
The president wrote Baldowski a letter thanking him for the cartoon, Baldowski’s obituary noted.
As a nationally known editorial cartoonist working in Carter’s home state, Baldowski had a head start on the national press in sketching Carter, beginning with Carter’s unsuccessful campaign for governor in 1966.
Baldowski told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1976 that his caricatures of Carter evolved from a country boy and peanut farmer from Plains — images the national press often focused on — to something “obviously urbane” with better hair.
“His smile … is blinding. His hair is cut in the mod layer fashion,” Baldowski said. “The total Jimmy Carter is fashioned from an Ipana (toothpaste) ad, the hair spray and tremendous confidence which he styled all by himself.”
The toothpaste’s advertising slogan said in part, “Ipana for the Smile of Beauty.” Baldy’s reference, however, may have been to the toothpaste’s advertising mascot, Bucky Beaver, whose smile showed two large beaver teeth, according to the Bucky Beaver & Friends website, http://www.buckybeaver.ca/.
The smile in this Baldy caricature below from 1970 when Carter was running for governor looked a bit more like Bucky Beaver.
The 1978 Camp David Accords — the peace agreement Carter orchestrated between Sadat and Begin which was formalized in 1979 — followed days of delicate negotiation and some skepticism by those following the news. This Sept. 6, 1978, Baldy cartoon, sketched during the start of the talks, suggested the process was a little shaky.
Carter began his run for president in late 1974, not quite two years before the 1976 election.
The Democrats were running against Gerald Ford, who became president after the 1974 resignation of President Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal. By 1976, the Democratic field was crowded with big names and small.
In a 1976 cartoon, Baldowski depicted Carter and other Southern progressive governors pulling the South’s boat into the “Presidential Main Stream.”
Carter seemed a long shot for president, and Baldy depicted the lonely former governor hitchhiking on an empty highway in an early cartoon.
After Carter won the Iowa Caucuses, Baldowski revised the cartoon. Notice the “Oops” next to his signature.
The theme was repeated in these two cartoons, before Carter’s election, and afterward.
Before he pulled off the win, Baldy showed in mid-1976 that Carter’s campaign was gaining momentum.
By June of that year, Carter’s chances were looking better and better, and it was too late for other candidates to try to shut the barn door.
A Baldy cartoon of Carter leading other Democrats singing in unison was both a comment on winning the nomination and a nod to Carter’s much-publicized faith. A writer in Time magazine referred to him as a “born-again peanut farmer.” This cartoon was published June 29, 1976, shortly before the Democratic National Convention.
The Democratic National Convention was held the week of July 12, 1976. This cartoon below was published about the time that Carter was formally nominated as the Democratic candidate and depicts a scene set in his hometown of Plains, Ga.
During the campaign, Baldy’s cartoons about Carter sometimes involved his staff, including Jody Powell, his press secretary on the left, and chief of staff Hamilton Jordan, right.
Bert Lance, the Georgia banker who became Carter’s budget director, is pictured below in this cartoon published in November 1976. Carter ran as an outsider and brought with him a reputation for reorganizing government and fiscal responsibility.
This cartoon below depicts the famous walk the Carter family made, rather than riding in a limousine, to the White House after the inauguration. It contrasts their simplicity with “bureaucracy” which is arriving in the limo.
On the day before Carter took the oath of office, this cartoon below relayed a message of Atlanta’s pride in his election. It shows the statue of of early 20th century newspaper editor Henry Grady, which stands on Marietta Street in downtown Atlanta, waving in victory.
Baldowski was in the middle of painting a mural on the wall of downtown restaurant Knickerbocker’s that included a caricature of Carter “dressed in farmer’s garb” when Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter dropped in for dinner. Carter had recently been retired from the presidency by voters. The Atlanta Constitution reported that the restaurant owner asked Carter to autograph the mural. “With a black magic marker handed to him by Baldowski, he printed a simple ‘Jimmy Carter’ beside his caricature,” the writer noted.
Baldy’s cartoons were reprinted in other newspapers and also appeared in Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 and received a Sigma Delta Chi journalism award in 1959 for a cartoon about desegregation of schools, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
READ MORE
Obituary of Baldy - Atlanta Constitution editorial cartoonist Clifford Baldowski
Biography of Clifford Baldowski from the University of Georgia libraries
Article about Baldy from the New Georgia Encyclopedia
About the Author
Brian O'Shea is a senior digital producer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He works with the newsroom to identify topics of interest to Atlanta readers and also works with voter guides and election results. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia and The Ohio State University Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism.
