Nation: How Anderson Changes the Race

A TIME poll shows people want him to run, even if he loses

For some of the contenders, the campaign of 1980 was a multimillion-dollar enterprise that consumed as much as two years of their lives. For others it was a brief and quixotic fling. Now, with the seemingly endless set of primaries concluding next week, America's increasingly bizarre process for sorting out its presidential candidates is all but over.

President Jimmy Carter's crushing defeat of Senator Edward Kennedy in last week's Oregon primary put him within easy reach of the majority of delegates...