Carter For President Smiling Peanut 1976 Pin

In the wake of the Watergate scandal and Nixon's resignation, peanut farmer turned Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter's outsider image caught the eye of disillusioned voters who were fed up with the politics as usual mentality of Washington. A big part of Carter's success in the 1976 presidential election against Gerald Ford can be attributed to the effectiveness of his grassroots campaign. The "Peanut Brigade," a group of volunteers, friends, and other Carter supporters from Georgia, led his campaign to a string of victories throughout the primaries, frequently leveraging irreverent pop art style imagery of a peanut wearing Carter's signature smile.