Carter had entered a period of reflection and self-criticism unlike any in the history of the presidency. Years before ritualistic “listening tours” became standard for politicians, he decided he wanted to “reach out and to listen to the voices of America,” as he explained later. The difference was, later politicians asked voters about their problems; Carter already knew what those were. These meetings would be more about his problems—a largely sincere effort to learn how and why he was messing up. It never seemed to occur to the president that the peculiar process he had set in motion might worsen the very problem it was designed to address.
All told, more than 130 leaders from different sectors would chopper to Camp David over the next ten days. The president knew that for political reasons, he would need to make every constituency—labor and business, teachers and preachers—feel heard. The first group, on July 6, consisted of eight governors, followed by “wise men “ John Gardner of the watchdog group Common Cause; Panama negotiator Sol Linowitz; and Clark Clifford, a smarmy fixture of the Washington establishment who appealed to Carter mostly because he had first come to Washington with Truman. Carter sat on the floor of Aspen Lodge, taking notes. “Their criticisms of me were much more severe” than the governors’, he wrote, “including the basic question: Can I govern the country?”
Carter found the meeting with members of Congress unhelpful, and the one with economists “the worst of the week.” In one of the later meetings, he listened attentively to the thirty-two-year-old governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, who struck a characteristically upbeat tone, telling the president, “Don’t just preach sacrifice.” Clinton thought Carter should also remind the American people “that it is an exciting time to be alive.” It was good advice that Carter did not take.
On the evening of July 10, the president—in transition from government engineer to national pastor—finally heard some of the Reinhold Niebuhr–style moral reasoning and spiritual insight that he craved. He gathered clergy from all major denominations to be part of what White House staffers dubbed “the God Squad.” Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum saw Carter as a Moses-like figure returning from the wilderness with a new vision for his people that rejected “unrestrained consumerism” and “mindless self-indulgence.” Robert Bellah, a brilliant sociologist of religion, offered “the covenant model” for creating a sense of mutual obligation on the part of the government and the American people. Others made reference to the long religious tradition of the “jeremiad,” named for the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, who lambasted his people for worshipping false idols.