You! This is a radio Atlantic. I'm Isaac Dauphaire. Jim Fallows is a staff writer here at the Atlantic, but in addition to the articles he writes for us,

he has another project that's taken off over the last four years.

He's a pilot, and he and his wife Deborah have been flying around the country from small town to

small town to better understand the parts of it we don't see in national political

coverage. I spent a lot of my time traveling the country covering the presidential

primary campaign which means a whole

different set of expectations and events and today we're going to compare notes.

One of the questions that I really want to get into with him, are things as grim as they seem?

Jim, thanks for being here on Radio Atlantic.

My pleasure, Isaac, thanks for having me.

So your time in politics goes back to Jimmy Carter. You signed on to the campaign when he was in that

transition point between nobody's ever heard of this guy and this guy is actually going to be the

president. Yes, this was the spring of 1976.

I was living in Texas.

My wife was in graduate school, University of Texas.

I'd started doing pieces for the Atlantic as a freelancer

while working for Texas monthly.

And out of the blue I had some friends on the Carter campaign.

They were needing to staff up as it looked like he was getting some traction, so I signed

on a little before the convention and was on for the ride.

That moment in American politics is probably the closest analog to what we're going

through now.

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