Do we like them?

Do we like Jimmy Carter?

Our score: 9 out of 10. Decades of building houses, fighting disease and backing equality, with a rocky presidency and a slow start on gay rights the only real marks.

Nothing new on Jimmy Carter lately: he died at home in Plains, Georgia, on 29 December 2024, aged 100, about a year after his wife. Everything below is the finished record, which makes it easier to read than most.

He was born in Plains in 1924, went to the US Naval Academy and worked on the first nuclear submarine program. He came home to run the family peanut business after his father died, then won a Georgia state senate seat in 1962 and the governorship in 1970. In 1976 he beat Gerald Ford as a Democratic outsider.

As president he negotiated the Panama Canal treaties and brokered the Camp David Accords, which led to the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty. The rest was rougher: high inflation, a much-mocked 1979 'malaise' speech, and a 444-day Iran hostage crisis with a botched rescue attempt that cost eight servicemen. He lost to Ronald Reagan in a landslide. Even friendly commentators say he organised his presidency poorly.

On the harm test he comes up well. In 1978 he urged California voters to reject Proposition 6, which would have barred gay and lesbian teachers, and his administration hosted the first White House meeting with gay rights activists. He said in 2012 he thought it was fine for gay people to marry in civil ceremonies. Historians call his progress slow, and the 1977 meeting produced no concrete results, so it's a good record, not a spotless one.

On women and faith he put his money where his mouth was. He left the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000, calling its beliefs rigid, and the denomination does not allow women to be ministers. By 2015 he said he believed Jesus would approve gay marriage, so a devout Baptist who didn't treat faith as a reason to exclude people.

The good stuff is the stuff he's best remembered for. He founded the Carter Center in 1982, which monitors elections and mediates conflicts, and its Guinea worm campaign cut cases from an estimated 3.5 million a year in 1986 to 28 in 2018. He spent decades building homes with Habitat for Humanity and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.