When Jimmy Carter announced his candidacy for president, he was viewed as such a long shot that his home state’s major newspaper headlined the story, “Jimmy Carter is running for WHAT?”

While the deeply religious Carter is remembered as a great humanitarian for the good works of his lengthy 42-year post-presidency, the brilliance of his 1976 presidential campaign is largely forgotten. The reform impulse of his White House tenure is also often discounted. Carter’s big reelection defeat in 1980 (he was the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose a second term), and the troubles he faced as president, have overwhelmed memory of these efforts.