Republicans for Jimmy

From the memoirs of Robert M. Gates, who at the time of this writing had worked for four presidents:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, I believe the Soviets saw Carter as a
committed ideological foe as well as geopolitical adversary--and as a President
prepared to act on his hostility in both arenas. And in that he represented
a decided change from his predecessors going back to Eisenhower. Further,
I think the Kremlin later came to see great continuity between Carter's
approach to them and that of his successor, Ronald Reagan. In fact, Carter
prepared the ground for Reagan in the strategic arena, confronting the Soviets
and Cubans in the Third World, and in challenging the legitimacy of Soviet
authority at home. He took the first steps to strip away the mask of Soviet
ascendancy and exploit the reality of Soviet vulnerability. Unfortunately for
Carter, until now hardly anyone has known.