The most confident prediction that can be made about the 1980 presidential campaign is that the nominees will invest enormous energy, time, and money in stumping the country. Even though television can now bring them effortlessly into the nation’s living rooms, candidates eagerly commit themselves, sometimes against the advice of their most expert strategists, to the grind and risk of the campaign tour, a hullabaloo of marching bands, pressing throngs, outstretched hands, the candidate fatigued and hoarse, shouting platitudes about the beauty of the countryside, the virtues of its citizens and of their sterling leaders—provided they belong to his party.

It would seem that this boisterous ritual has been going on since the early days of the Republic, and one can imagine, say, Andrew Jackson striding through a shouting mob to the steps of a small-town courthouse, there to give a tough speech against the Bank, and broach a keg of cider. And, in the main, this picture is accurate: there have always been speeches, and cheering crowds, and free cider. But there is one very significant anomaly—until a time within the living memory of many Americans, the candidate himself never even considered appearing.

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