Or how about Ballinamuck?
In 1978 it was just clear, the country was headed for disaster and it was obvious to anyone with a brain that Carter had to be removed.
Lowell Weicker was just another liberal who obviously would have done no better than Carter. I think Howard Baker was highly respected across ideological lines but he just never put together a good campaign (see Fred Thompson). That left George Bush, who at the time struck a lot of us as the second coming of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan who was, it was said, just too old. There were some other guys but I don’t remember them.
The point is, by now in the run up to 1980 I think most Conservatives felt that Reagan was going to be the guy - at least if you were sitting in California. Even though he in no way a perfect choice at the time. You just felt that he had the ideas to fix the country and the political experience to make it happen.
I feel none of that this time. The people we have range from too inexperienced to idea challenged to down right toxic.
The other thing to remember is that Dems then weren’t like Dems now. Factionalism was much less obvious then than it is now - and factionalism is the death of republics.
I’ll be just north of Co Longford this October.