I was 31 years old and living in Denver when I cast my first ballot for president in 1976. My 10-year absence from the polls wasn’t for a lack of interest but was a product of circumstance. The voting age hadn’t yet changed to 18 in 1964, so I missed the Johnson-Goldwater contest. Then in 1968 I was serving in the Navy at a time when no real effort was made to provide service members absentee ballots. In October 1972 I was moving to Colorado from Maryland, long before early voting was offered there and far too late to register here. So I was on the lookout for a Democratic candidate to support in 1975 when Newsweek reported that the first-term governor of Georgia would be running. Jimmy Carter was described as a Naval Academy graduate, nuclear engineer and peanut farmer, as well as a born-again Christian. I was a Navy veteran, my father a nuclear engineer and his father a New Mexico cotton farmer, so I was intrigued.

In January 1976 Carter’s name recognition polled at just 4 per cent. He was not our usual Ivy League candidate. In those days, it took several weeks to find an address for the Carter campaign in Atlanta, but once I had it, I wrote and requested copies of position papers that might be available on national issues. A week later I received a boxed package, perhaps three inches thick, with detailed proposals on just about every challenge facing the nation. A month or two later I received an invitation in the mail to meet the governor at a reception hosted by Wilma and Wellington Webb at the long-since shuttered Marina Hotel on Colfax Avenue, across the street from the U. S. Mint. I was disappointed, as were the Webbs, that scarcely more than a dozen Democrats attended. Nonetheless, Gov. Carter was gracious, funny and earnest in equal measure.

Successful politicians can usually be divided into two categories, retail or wholesale wizards. In rare cases — Bill Clinton comes to mind — a candidate excels at both skills. But Jimmy Carter is the master of the retail sale. One-on-one, he could be the most charming, persuasive and decent person I’ve ever met. However tired or distracted he might be, you are left with a sense that he’s been waiting all day for the chance to speak with you. By contrast, Barack Obama has proven the master of the wholesale campaign. Has there ever been another presidential candidate who could fill the grounds between the Colorado State Capitol and the City and County building with 125,000 supporters, as Obama did in 2008? It isn’t surprising Carter was able to hammer out the Camp David Accords, ending decades of hostility between Egypt and Israel. I suspect, however, that he prays each day for Anwar Sadat, who was felled by assassins for reaching the agreement that has stabilized the Middle East for decades.

When the formal reception ended, Carter invited the handful of stragglers, myself included, up to his room, where he kicked off his shoes and welcomed a second round of questions. Nothing was out of bounds. Finally, at 2 a.m., someone suggested it was time to let the candidate get some sleep. As I drove up Speer Boulevard to North Denver, I was convinced I had just spent nearly 10 hours with the next president of the United States. I began telling anyone who would listen that Jimmy Carter would be our next President, but even Democrats acted as though I’d taken leave of my senses. It’s important to remember the political climate of the time. President Nixon had resigned in disgrace, as had Vice President Agnew. Runaway inflation was bankrupting American families. We had finally cut and run from Viet Nam. President Gerald Ford, who had never run for national office, pardoned Nixon, who had appointed him vice president. A pair of crazed women, one an acolyte of Charles Manson, had attempted to assassinate Ford for obscure reasons. American politics appeared both venal and corrupt.

Jimmy Carter’s message of honesty and humility resonated with voters. His campaign book was titled “Why Not the Best?” As a candidate, he carried his own suitcase, sleeping in supporters’ spare bedrooms in Iowa and New Hampshire, eating breakfast with their families and going on to win both states while overturning conventional campaign wisdom. It is impossible to predict when a candidate will emerge who perfectly matches the public mood of the moment, yet it happens with surprising frequency, and every campaign decision, in hindsight, appears inspired. Jimmy Carter chose green as his campaign color, rather than the usual red, white and blue, perhaps signaling his support to the growing environmental movement.

Carter’s intrinsic integrity — “I will not lie to the American people” could have been his campaign slogan — together with a surprising inability to delegate responsibility likely doomed his reelection. Operating for months without a chief-of-staff, even scheduling the White House tennis courts himself, Carter occasionally appeared overwhelmed by the challenges he faced — never more so than during the Iranian hostage crisis and the bungled rescue attempt. He was also, in part, a scold, urging Americans to act like adults, turn down their thermostats and shoulder responsibilities. But it’s often forgotten that it was Jimmy Carter who appointed Paul Volcker to chair the Federal Reserve, giving him a green light to break the back of inflation by ratcheting up interest rates to painful levels. The strategy worked but was neither popular nor politically wise.

Carter has used his nearly four decades out of office to prove a great man can keep right on doing great things. His Carter Center has supervised the transition to democracy throughout the Third World, monitoring elections, introducing public health systems, arbitrating disputes and attacking corruption without fear or favor. A lifelong woodworking hobbyist, he almost single-handedly elevated Habitat for Humanity to international status. And through it all he has written a bookshelf on the challenges still facing us all. I’ve spoken with him only a few times since his presidency, but when he was in Denver a few weeks ago to sign “A Full Life,” his most recent memoir, he winked at me and said, “Hi, Miller.” Knowing now that he was already aware of his cancer diagnosis, I can’t help wonder how he remembered me and what his remarkable example teaches. I pray for him that the God he loves will welcome him in his sleep, as he so richly deserves.

— Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former state legislator. He can be reached at mnhwriter@msn.com