That time Rosalynn Carter came to Macon and joked of husband Jimmy’s first presidential bid

Early in the summer of 1975, Rosalynn Carter made a flurry of telephone calls.

She was raising money for her husband Jimmy’s seemingly long-shot bid to become president of the United States.

The aim was to drum up support and, more importantly, dollars to qualify him for federal campaign matching funds.

Later that year, in mid-December, with the 1976 election less than a year away and Jimmy largely a national political unknown, she spoke of those calls while on a campaign stop in Macon. At an afternoon tea, no less.

Over the years, Rosalynn, who died Sunday at age 96, made numerous visits to Macon, be they for humanitarian efforts or social calls, including in 2003 and 2011.

Her appearance in late 1975 at the $10-a-person tea attracted roughly three dozen women. It made the front page of the next morning’s Macon Telegraph in an article that noted:

Since April, the slender, brunette wife of the former Georgia governor has been criss-crossing the country trying to convince voters that the soft-spoken Carter deserves the Democratic presidential nomination.

She shared an anecdote about her countless fundraising calls, explaining that on the phone she had introduced herself and then said, “My husband is running for president.”

Invariably, the reply came, “President of what?”

“Half of the time,” she said, “they’d never heard of him.”

Self-deprecating remarks aside, it was clear that Rosalynn, 48 at the time, was all business.

She was, according to the Telegraph’s write-up, a picture of confidence, beyond sure of her husband’s viability as a candidate. A true believer in his, and their, cause.

“He thinks he’ll be the next president,” she said. “And so do I.”

Jimmy, of Plains, a Democrat who had served as governor of Georgia until his four-year term expired in January 1975, was at the time trailing in polls behind the likes of Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey and Massachusetts Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy.

In Macon, meanwhile, former Mayor Ronnie Thompson and Republican gubernatorial candidate had the year prior finished second to Democrat George Busbee in the race to succeed Jimmy Carter as governor.

Rosalynn, speaking at that fundraising tea in December 1975 hosted by Sandy Bond, who had been a nurse and later a hospital administrator and senior vice president at The Medical Center of Central Georgia, described Jimmy as an anti-establishment contender.

“Jimmy’s main appeal is not from Washington,” she said. “He’s not a professional politician. People don’t trust professional politicians. ... The more people know him, the more they’ll like him.”

Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report.