“Jimmy Carter was always an outsider ,” said biographer Jonathan Alter, explaining how Carter capitalized on the fallout of the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal that toppled Richard Nixon. “The country was thirsting for moral renewal and for Carter, as this genuinely religious figure, to come in and clean things up."

Former president Jimmy Carter's coffin departed his home state of Georgia from the Carter Presidential Center for Washington DC. His remains will travel with his family aboard Special Air Mission 39 from Dobbins Air Reserve Base to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Once in Washington, he will lie in state at the US Capitol for two days.