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George Bush was an asterisk in the polls. He was up against several of the top brass of the Republican Party in America when he announced his run for President in 1980. He was facing Howard Stassen, Representative Phil Crane, Senator Bob Dole, Senator Howard Baker, Governor John Connally, Representative John Anderson and former California Governor Ronald Reagan. There was literally no one who thought he had any chance in that crowd at all. 

On the other side of the political aisle was a race that was stealing all the attention from the Republicans as well. It was a bitter intraparty fight between the sitting President Jimmy Carter and the last brother of the political dynasty, known as America's Royal Family, Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy of Massachusetts. They were engaged in a battle so bitter that books were still being written about it into the current political era. 

This is the story of that primary campaign season. It was the campaign that caught the interest of our host Randal Wallace when he was a nine year old. It was one of the most exciting election years in the entire history of the nation and over the next four episodes we will take you through it all. The fight that ended "Camelot", the near upset  primary fight that put George H. W. Bush on the political map, the single evening that changed the history of the next half century and led to a member of the Bush family being on six of the next seven national tickets of the Republican Party, and finally the rise of arguably one of the Greatest Presidents in all of American History in Ronald Reagan. 

It is all here in the the four part story of the Campaign of 1980, a campaign that inspired one little nine year old boy in Myrtle Beach S.C. to take an interest in politics and eventually lead to the podcast you are listening to now. 

Questions or comments at , [email protected] , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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