Amid all the reminiscences this week about former President Jimmy Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at age 100, surprisingly little attention has focused on just how brilliant a campaign he ran to secure the Democratic nomination in 1976.

When the campaign began, Carter was the longest of long shots. He entered a crowded field filled with politicians of established national repute, while the overwhelming polling favorites, former Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Sen. Ted Kennedy, waited in the wings as undeclared candidates. Humphrey, who was the nominee in 1968 and earned the largest Democratic popular vote in 1972 (while losing badly, however, in the delegate count), clearly was interested in being “drafted” but never actually announced his campaign. Hundreds of delegates elected as “uncommitted,” though, were well understood to be for Humphrey, making his shadow campaign quite viable.