Hey, it's Brad. Coming at you with a special edition of Start here because ABC News has learned that former president Jimmy Carter has died. The 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, a Democrat from Georgia, the only person from Georgia to ever hold the presidency. In fact, that's just one of a number of superlatives to describe Carter.

Born in 1924 to a nurse, he actually was the first U.S. president born in a hospital.

And when his family announced yesterday that he had died after living longer than anyone

expected while in hospice care, suffering from unspecified illness, he died at 100 years old, older than any U.S. president

has ever lived. And while one-term president might indeed be the first paragraph of his obituary,

Carter occupies this very unique spot of presidential legacy. So we called in the reporter

who probably knows him better than anyone else here at ABC News.

Anne Compton was our White House reporter for 40 years.

She was working the White House beat as Carter became president.

And Anne, this is going to be our only segment today.

So I'm so glad you're here to quickly discuss.

Can you help me understand what set Jimmy Carter apart, both in style and in substance.

Jimmy Carter was a nobody from a small state house, and he became globally famous,

because he was a different cut.

If you measure yourself against what the president ought to be, you feel, well, you know,

there's an inadequate set of that really concerns me.

But then when you

start comparing your own qualifications and backgrounds and motivations and experience and training

with the other candidates, you don't feel quite so inadequate. He had a big grin. He had a

southern accent. He was a very populist kind of person. He reached out and made a big deal of the fact that he was just from a small, tiny town that we got to know really well in Plains, Georgia.

These are floor on us.

That's a very good peanut used primarily for peanut butter and for candy.

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