Jimmy Carter, who had sat out the Democratic runoff election between Arnall and Maddox much to Arnall's outrage, finally endorsed Maddox, having described the Democratic state platform excluding racial matters as "more progressive and more liberal" than the Republican alternative. The "Macon Telegraph" found nothing "liberal" in Maddox, whom it dismissed as "a grave threat to peace, dignity, and progress." The publication denounced "inept and erratic leadership" that could thrust the state into a "tailspin, poison race relations, stagnate the growth of jobs and payrolls, ruin the accreditation of schools, and make Georgia a laughingstock of the nation."