Twenty-Five Years Ago Today . . .

. . . the voters of 44 States elected the electors who elected Ronald Reagan to the presidency. I was already a libertarian by then (albeit an instinctive rather than reflective one), and I certainly preferred Reagan to Carter, against whom I had voted in 1976. But by 1980 I was so disenchanted by electoral politics -- because of Carter's win in 1976 -- that I didn't bother to vote.

The more I learn about Reagan and his well-thought-out brand of almost-libertarian Republicanism, the more I wish for two things:

• that I had voted for him, just for the satisfaction of having done so.

• that his domestic agenda had not been thwarted by congressional opposition. (Strong Democrat control of the House more than offset the slim majority Republicans enjoyed in the Senate for the first six years of Reagan's presidency.)

If only . . . the saddest words man can pen.