I remember the election campaigns of 1980, what with President Carter being alerted to the Ted Kennedy insurgency and claiming, "I'll whip his ass (he did)," and the plethora of Republican candidates. The only one for whom I felt anything positive was Ronald Reagan, who had unsuccessfully ran an insurgency himself in 1976.
I disliked George Bush for the very reason that many mainstream Republicans liked him: why, he'd been a congressman and an ambassador to the Chinese and Director of Central Intelligence and chairman of the Republican National Committee. "What?" I'd ask. "Can't this guy hold a job?"
Nobody ever laughed.
I had even less use for Illinois Congressman John Anderson, who became the darling of all the "independents." Then, as now, "independent" meant "liberal." There was all manner of gas being passed about how forward-thinking he was, how independent, yadda yadda yadda. Most of those who favored Anderson seemed to reserve their greatest criticisms of Reagan for his dyed hair and his makeup. Not much real policy analysis or argument as I recall.
None of that meant much to me: I was prepared to vote for Ed Clark, and I was quite impatient with the argument that I'd be "throwing my vote away."
Which, in my judgment, I did not do: I entered that voting booth in Clearwater, Florida, pulled the curtains and began to cast my vote for Libertarian candidate Clark. But my mind became flooded with months and months of Jimmy Carter blathering about El Salvador, El Salvador, El Salvador, and it suddenly became clear to me that Carter was getting ready to blunder us into war in Nicaragua and had to be stopped. I punched the ticket for Ronald Reagan and was glad to do so.