Jimmy Carter as a power-playing loner from the farm to the White House and on the global stage

As Jimmy Carter nears his 100th birthday this October 1st, he remains in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia. It's where he wanted to be. Carter has spent most of his life as a political outsider, even as president. David Gergen advised four presidents, and said Carter never mastered Capitol Hill, the national press corps or Washington’s social scene. But biographer Jonathan Alter says Carter's later posture as an outside influencer sustained decades of success advocating for human rights and democracy. Historian Amber Roessner says Carter always understood the insiders’ rules — he just didn’t want to play by them.