Reprinted from 2014: Resistance is Futile

[howeird]

Just to show how far I can go to express my political beliefs, here's a story.

In 1980 Ronald Reagan was running for President. I lived in Washington State, where polls showed him running away with the GOP nomination. There was almost no chance Carter would be re-elected if Ronnie was the Republican candidate. A group of 30 of us in and around Seattle decided to make our voices heard, and try to block Reagan's nomination.

To do this, we needed to be able to vote in the state GOP convention. To do that we needed to be elected Republican Precinct Committeemen. Between us, we lived in 18 different precincts. I joined the Republican Party, paid my small fee to get on the ballot, and ran unopposed in my almost totally Democratic precinct. I won the seat. All 18 of us did.

At the time, there was an anti-war, socially liberal but fiscally moderate Republican congressman named John Anderson, whose name was on the GOP ballot. We chose him as our candidate, and went to the state convention as delegates pledged to him. I found this item in his wikipedia page: "Anderson increasingly found himself at odds with conservatives in his home district and other members of the House. He broke with the administration on Vietnam, was not always a faithful supporter of the Republican agenda, and was a very controversial critic of Richard Nixon during Watergate."

At the convention, there were 40 of us Anderson delegates from around the state. George Bush had about 500 delegates and their very smarmy campaign manager tried to buy our votes. Bob Dole, Howard Baker and John Connally were also in the race, but I think by this time they had bowed out in favor of Reagan.

Just before the convention started, Anderson left the GOP and declared as an independent candidate, with Patrick Lucey as his running mate. By the rules of the convention, we were still pledged to Anderson, he was still on the ballot, so we stuck to our guns.

I have to say that the state GOP chairman was extremely gracious, he allowed our nominating speeches the full allotted time, and he stifled any and all calls from the floor to have us disowned.

Reagan won on the first ballot. It was something like 1200 to 40.

I voted for Anderson in the November election, but the tally was:
Ronald Reagan/George Bush, Republican 43,903,230 50.75% [489 90.9% electoral votes]
James Carter/Walter Mondale, Democratic 35,480,115 41.01% [ 49 9.1% electoral votes]
John Anderson/Patrick Lucey, Independent 5,719,850 6.61% [ 0 0.0% electoral votes]

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

In 76 I voted for Eugene McCarthy. In 80 - I think that was the year I voted for Gus Hall and Angela Davis. Colorado was heavily GOP then, and I knew my vote counted for nothing.

[howeird]

I don't think I even knew McCarthy was on a ballot. He may not have been on the Washington State ballot, which is the one I was given when I went to the US Embassy in Bangkok to vote. I voted for Carter, because I was a Peace Corps volunteer and so was his mother. Boy did I get that one wrong. He tried to shut down the program, and destroyed all the volunteers' records, mine included.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

I didn't like Carter. Too much of a religious fanatic.

[howeird]

From 18,000 miles away he came across as quietly religious, not fanatic, not evangelistic.