If you expected Jason Carter to brood after this month's stinging election defeat, you'd be disappointed.
Two weeks after he was roundly beaten by Gov. Nathan Deal, the Atlanta state senator talked of building upon the network of supporters his campaign cultivated across Georgia and preparing Democrats for future clashes in what “truly is a battleground state.”
He spoke of a campaign that “moved the ball gigantically down the field” for his party and cast his loss as a consequence of a national GOP wave that led to Democratic defeats in left-leaning bastions like Massachusetts and Maryland. The only thing he would have done differently, he said, would have been to schedule his November 2013 announcement a few months earlier.
And although he’s not committing to another run for office, he’s certainly not closing the door on one.
“We’ll see. The world changes. Two years is an eternity in politics and four years is two eternities,” Carter said in his first interview since his defeat. “You don’t know. But I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.”
Georgia Democrats hoped that demographic changes, a tide of financial support and the famous pedigrees of Carter and Michelle Nunn, the party's Senate candidate, would be enough to turn the deep-red state a shade of purple. But both Democrats earned only 45 percent of the vote - two percentage points higher than former Gov. Roy Barnes garnered in 2010.
In hindsight, Carter said, the GOP’s success in Georgia may have been inevitable.
“Ultimately, I don’t think anything anyone could have done from a campaign strategy point would have changed the outcome,” he said. “You see that nationwide.”
The defeats led some leading Democrats to question the party's strategy. Among them were Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and supporters who claimed Carter's campaign hadn't done enough to register minority voters who form the party's backbone. Other strategists question whether the party effectively targeted white voters who, for now, make up a majority of the state's electorate.
Carter offers a ready answer to both sides that's reminiscent of his "shell game" argument about education funding.
“The debate about who we go after as Democrats is an absolutely false debate. Really, what Democrats have always done and always had to do is both,” he said. “We have to get more support in the white community and we have to reach out and get more support in every other community, including the African-American community.”
Carter betrayed no ill will toward Reed, an ally of Deal's whose level of support for Carter was under scrutiny during the race. In the interview, Carter said a robo-call claiming Reed wasn't a true Democrat was a "silly" sideshow. He took pains to cool the notion that there's a feud with the mayor.
“I think he did everything he could. He was a big part of the coordinated campaign and fundraising,” Carter said. “I do think that the rivalry is overblown and is a creature of the press. And I don’t think it would have made a difference either way. What we’re talking about here is the most dynamic, exciting Democratic race that we’ve had in anyone’s memory. We’ve moved the ball gigantically down the field and that’s where we are.”
That was only one way he tried to portray his election defeat as a major step toward a broader Democratic revival in Georgia. The next step, he said, will require an all-out effort to persuade whites, register more minorities, entice newcomers and inspire young people.
Said Carter:
"There's all these discussions about what should be our focus, and the answer is: You've got to do it all. You just have to. That's one of the reasons it just takes time. You can't expect people to abandon their comfort zone and switch from one party to another in just one cycle. You can't expect young people just to be engaged. You have to build and build and build."
Carter said he’s still not decided what he’ll do next, but he said he has plenty of options. For now, he said, he’s adjusting to a return to family life and a new puppy – a campaign promise to his two children.
If Carter does run again, he would join a pantheon of Democrats in Georgia to give it another try. Chief among them is his grandfather, former President Jimmy Carter, who lost his governor's bid in 1966 before claiming victory in 1970 – a win that helped propel him to the White House.
Could his grandson again follow those footsteps by running for governor a second time?
“I’m not ruling it out. And I’ll certainly commit to having a role in this debate that we’ve started, and the future of politics in this state,” said Carter. “And whether that puts me on the ballot again is a question that has to be answered later. I’m not going anywhere.”
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