ROSALYNN CARTER HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT Rosalynn Carter meets and greets with a glum, ever-present Secret Service agent in close attendance. Advertisement

While Republican activists were posing for pictures with President George Bush in Reno for $2,100 a pop, local Democrats hammed it up for free with Rosalynn Carter Monday.

The former first lady and husband of President Jimmy Carter visited about 80 residents at the Pahrump Senior Center Monday afternoon, then was the keynote speaker at the $45-per-plate Nye County Jefferson Jackson Dinner at the Pahrump Nugget Monday night.

Rosalynn Carter was the latest member of the Carter family to campaign for U.S. Senate candidate Jack Carter, who faces an uphill battle in the polls against Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. John Ensign. His brother, Chip Carter, made an appearance at the Pahrump Community Library Sept. 23.

Carter said she and her husband have been working with Habitat for Humanity for 22 years and she finally knows how to frame a door.

She also noted two personal milestones this year besides her son's candidacy: The Carters celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary and saw the birth of their great-great-grandson.

More to the political point, the former First Lady spoke about her candidate son like any proud mother. "He's an honest, smart, kind, decent, hard-working person. His values are the right ones," she said.

Jack Carter played the guitar in church and was put to work on the peanut farm like the other children, Rosalynn said, recalling how he shoveled more peanuts than anyone. He went on to receive an engineering degree at Georgia Tech and served in the Vietnam War.

Rosalynn Carter said the whole family campaigned for her husband when he won election to the state senate in Georgia, then governor, then U.S. president in 1976.

Jack "traveled all over the country when Jimmy was campaigning," she said. "Our whole family campaigned and we campaigned in different directions. That's the way he won elections."

Rosalynn Carter recalled that they didn't have a lot of money and often stayed in the home of volunteers while on the campaign trail.

"I was out of politics so long, I didn't realize how much I missed it until Jack ran," Carter said. That included fundraising. "After I pick up the phone and make the first call, it's fun."

Jack Carter said for 25 years since they left the White House, his parents have been non-partisan. Now they have a chance to campaign for their son. Jack said he wasn't interested in politics either until recently. "I have never known the government could get as screwed up as it was today."

The younger Carter said he's learned a few things from dad, as when a reporter asked about Nevada receiving more pork if Ensign were re-elected, after it was recently announced the Republican incumbent would head the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.

"If they're concerned about pork in Nevada, they ought to make (U.S. Democratic Sen.) Harry Reid the majority leader," former president Carter told him.

While Americans were united after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration has thrown it all away, Jack Carter said. While he agreed entering Afghanistan was a good idea, invading Iraq was not. And there's no end in sight, he added.

The Medicare doughnut hole and the inability to shop for cheaper medication elsewhere are signs the present Bush administration serves special interests, not the people, Jack Carter said.

"My family and I have had an unusual trajectory. Usually, when you start off in Plains, you don't expect to get past Atlanta," he said.

When they were living in the Georgia governor's mansion one day in 1973, Jack recalled his mother calling them into the television room.

"We have something to tell you. Your father is going to run for president and we said that's cool, we've met these other guys and you're better than they are," Jack recalled.

While the family would rather flop down in a nice hotel room on the campaign trail, Jack said they bonded with people they stayed with on the road. "We were not a lead Democrat at the time," Jack Carter said. "We stayed with ranchers, farmers and the mechanics.

"What struck me as an epiphany was how informed people were about politics," he said. "Here were people that wanted nothing. They only wanted good government."

Carter said the anti-incumbent feeling is prevalent in rural Nevada. He added that nobody asked him about being pro-choice, about gay marriage or about flag burning, issues the Republican Party has emphasized this election year.

"As you get closer and closer to the election, you get more people involved," he said. "They're going to turn against the incumbent."

The senatorial hopeful addressed one complaint about him: that he's a carpetbagger who recently moved to Nevada. Carter replied that Ensign voted with Bush 96 percent of the time, so he might as well be from Texas.

Former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., a triple amputee from the Vietnam War and former head of the Veterans Administration, was also along on the campaign swing and quipped, "I really wasn't wounded in Vietnam, I just went duck hunting with Dick Cheney."

He also joked that Democratic Party headquarters should be moved to Pahrump where they can drink, gamble and fool around.

On a more serious note, Cleland said Americans need to reach out to the 1 million veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"War is hell, but sometimes coming home is even worse," Cleland said. "We have the Guard and Reserve going into a shooting war."