Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974 put the unelected Gerald Ford into the Oval Office. A long-serving Michigan Congressman and Navy officer in WWII, Ford had been appointed by Nixon as vice president a year earlier after the resignation of Spirew Agnew. He called for a time of national healing following the Watergate scandal, but only a month into his administration made the controversial decision to pardon Nixon of any wrongdoing although he had not been convicted of any crimes. Ford refused to explain his reason for the pardon and did not do so until his memoirs were published 22 years later.Ford continued Nixon's detente foreign policies but at home was faced with the aftermath of the OPEC embargo and a resultant two year economic recession. Inflation was also a growing concern but the president could offer few answers other than suggesting that people wear shirt buttons with the slogan W.I.P. (Whip Inflation Now)The surprise of the 1976 presidential campaign was the rise of the largely unknown Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, a former Navy engineer. Carter had sat on the panel that drafted the Democrat primary rules for the '76 election, and using this knowledge and his engineering acumen managed to skillfully outmaneuver better-known Democrat candidates such as Henry "Scoop" Jackson, George Wallace, Jerry Brown, and Morris Udall. By the time of the DNC in Madison Square Garden, New York City on July 12-15, Carter's nomination was all-but guaranteed. Because he was a Southerner and lingering distrust over running Southern Democrats for president remained, he chose as his running mate Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale to balance out the ticket.
Although Gerald Ford was mostly unchallenged in the Republican race, he did face a significant rival in California governor and conservative voice Ronald Reagan, who dragged it out to a floor fight at the RNC in Kansas City on August 16-19 which Ford narrowly came out on top. The president chose as his running mate the moderate Kansas Senator Bob Dole.In the general election, Jimmy Carter campaigned on his outsider status and stressed that he was not a lawyer. Ford ran on the message that he alone had the experience and leadership to guide the nation. This election saw the return of TV debates as Ford and Carter debated three times and the two vice presidential candidates once. During the second debate on October 6, Ford made a critical error by asserting that the USSR did not "occupy" Eastern Europe. Although he meant to say "Soviet occupation cannot suppress the Eastern European people's desire for freedom", his clumsy phrasing harmed his poll numbers. Carter meanwhile was momentarily troubled by an interview with Playboy Magazine in which he admitted to having had lustful thoughts for women other than his wife, which negatively effected his standing with evangelical Christians. Bob Dole also made a gaffe by arguing that thousands of Americans had been killed over the 20th century in Democrat wars.The race remained neck-and-neck until Election Day and it took until 3:30 AM on November 3 before NBC News declared that Carter had achieved enough electoral votes for the win. He got 297 electoral votes to Ford's 240 (one rogue elector in Washington voted for Ronald Reagan), and much of the Eastern United States. Ford dominated the West and New England. The popular vote total was close with a 2% difference between the two. Overall, polls shows that Carter's voting demographic was younger and had more women, minorities, urban dwellers, low income voters, Catholics, and Jews, while Ford's was older, whiter, wealthier, more Protestant, and more rural/suburban.
>>18400966Ford was never going to win that race. It was the first chance for the democrats (and some republicans) to express their anti-Nixon sentiments. Almost anyone nominated by the dems could have won
>wait, a magazine about sex ran my interview with them where I talked about sexual thoughts I had? nobody told me that.
Last presidential election where the Democrat candidate mostly swept the South despite Virginia preventing him from getting a full sweep. Even so, Carter's votes in the Southern states mostly came from black voters and he never managed more than 44% of the white vote anywhere outside Georgia.
>>18400966>East-West dividewow
Alongside 1960 this is the only election where the loser ranks higher than the winner when you aggregate the popular vote with percentage of states won(since 1912 at least) >>18400986Ford only needed to win Ohio(Carter by 0.27%) and Wisconsin(Carter by 1.68%) to win the race. It was a close election.
>>18400986>It was the first chance for the democrats (and some republicans) to express their anti-Nixon sentiments20% of Democrats voted Ford and only 11% of Republicans voted Carter.
>>18400966Last gasp of Democrat Texas, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi.
>>18400966Carter won by a lot less than most expected, the polls had him winning by FDR in 1932 landslide levels.
>>18401071He came off kinda poorly during the general election. If Election Day was one week later then Ford probably would win.
>>18401065it was the last victory of the old democratic party coalition, where southern evagelicans voted alongside midwest blue-collar workers, urban political machines, poor minorities and northern liberals. While Clinton managed to get the south for a couple last times, the party demographic changes had already settled in
Still an extremely strange decision by Ford to let Reagan have the final speech at the convention. Reagan was a good speaker don't get me wrong but that's the only reason people remember it. Made him the star of the convention instead of Ford.
>>18401088California was a pretty red state back then, it was Nixon and Reagan's home state it didn't turn into a blue wall state until the Clinton years.
>>18401088A state being your home state did have a fairly large influence back then(i.e South Dakota actually voting less Republican in '72 than '68 since it was McGovern's home state) but I don't think any was as strong as Georgia's affinity for Carter. It's mystifying really
>>18401091really it was a purple state. they tended to vote Republican in presidential elections during the Cold War because the state had a lot of defense industries and Nixon and Reagan being on the ticket a number of those elections. but Democrats mostly controlled state politics postwar and especially since 1960--the state legislature has been Democrat-controlled for most of the last 65 years and most of California's Senators since 1970 have been Democrats.
>>18401091Ford was quite liberal on social issues, he was also the last Republican presidential candidate to carry Marin County lol.
>>18401110>Ford was quite liberal on social issues, he was also the last Republican presidential candidate to carry Marin County lol.At the RNC he was forced to drop certain planks like Equal Rights Amendment and abortion support.
>>18400990the Playboy interview really wasn't helpful to Carter's campaign and evangelical groups ran out-of-context snippets of it to make him look like a sex pest
>>18400972>>18400990>>18401118It's funny actually, the question Playboy asked Jimmy Carter actually wasn't about sex at all. The question was:>Do you feel you've reassured people with this interview, people who are uneasy about your religious beliefs, who wonder if you're going to make a rigid) unbending President?Carter gave a very long response to this question of which the infamous "lust" remark was only a small part.This is the full transcript (1/2)
(2/2)
>>18401118>and evangelical groups ran out-of-context snippets of it to make him look like a sex pestApparently they were proposing to then vote for Ford a guy who supported Roe v. Wade and gay rights.
>>18401139Yeah because it was obvious and in plain sight that the Democrat party was steadily abandoning God. Hiding behind Carter as the nominee to deny it is just like saying that because there was no atheist President yet means religiosity hasn't declined.
>>18401139Carter ended up lifting Eisenhower's ban on gay Federal employees anyway lol.
>>18401147Carter campaigned as a wholesome moral Christian (unlike that dastardly Nixon who kept swearing in those tapes) then immediately cucked out to social liberals once in office. He made sure to kvetch at Reagan uttering the words "state's rights" so all the libs would know that he's part of the good guys.
Some people even think if ford hadn’t initially refused to bail out NYC. Or if Rockefeller hadn’t retired from front line politics, he could have won the state and therefore the election.
>>18401088It was over by 8:00 PMCarter didn't need Texas to win.People probably stayed home west of the Mississippi since their evening votes were irrelevant to the outcome.
>>18401013nobody out there had gotten the news about Watergate yet i guess
>>18401167That’s what Reagan would tell you. mf-er was denying any wrongdoing and excusing Nixon in every interview where he was asked about it.
>>18401168Based. Reagan also tried to appoint Robert Bork to SCOTUS. For all the talk about cucked establishment Republicans, they also appointed or tried to appoint the most based judges. Trump's appointments have been horrid.
>>18400966No Democrat presidential candidate has ever swept the entire East Coast, the closest was FDR in 1936 and Reagan is the only presidential candidate to do so since the second party system.
>>18401177>For all the talk about cucked establishment Republicans, they also appointed or tried to appoint the most based judgesEisenhower sure didn't, anyway.
>>18401158Is this some insane cope to try and explain why the election ended up being super close instead of Carter winning by a landslide like he was "supposed" to?
>>18401182I'm talking about more recent decades where establishment Republicans shunned the Pat Buchanan types. They had their share of bad nominations of course(Kennedy, Souter, Roberts...) and Scalia was meh, not particulalrly bad or good. but Thomas and Alito have proven far superior to all 3 of Trump's appointees, it's not even close.
Try telling someone 50 years ago that a black man and an Italian-American Catholic would be the most pro-Republican judges on the court.
>>18401196Or tell KKK members 100 years ago that these 2 would have the closest alignment to them.
as others have said, it used to be a given that a presidential candidate would carry his home state. usually--Alf Landon and George McGovern still lost their home states although the vote in them was quite close. that was true all the way until 2000 when Gore failed to carry his home state and didn't even perform well in it.
>>18401083>While Clinton managed to get the south for a couple last times, the party demographic changes had already settled inI think 1992 is better thought of as the final hoorah of the old coalition when you consider congress as well, though the strains on the coalition were clear by then
>>18401078The US economy had generally been on the upswing during 76, the post-OPEC recession was lifting and inflation was down a bit.
Carter was almost McGovern all over again where he aced the primaries but his strategy in the general election was pretty poor.
>>18401222His nomination campaign was solid. You don't come out of nowhere and seize your party's nomination by playing softball. Carter got weirdly cautious and timid during the general election.
>>18401219The national vote swung about 4% to the Republicans from 2008 to 2012 but MA only swung like 2.5% so Romney actually had a negative home state effect it seems
>>18401223i think Carter even admitted himself that he was not good at campaigning
>>18401226Carter wasn’t just an atrocious campaigner, he was an atrocious candidate and that translated to being an atrocious president. Can’t figure out why other Democrats couldn’t beat him in the primaries.
>>18401230Most of the other candidates were too liberal or not liberal enough.
>>18401230Establishment trust was already super-low in the Democratic party but stack it with Watergate's effect and you'll see how an outsider like Carter got an advantage. Then add their desire for electability and not someone crazy like McGovern again and you'll see how a wholesome Christian boy like Carter got an advantage again.
>>18401230Scoop Jackson and Mo Udall would have been better than him, they certainly would have had better relations with Congress at any rate.
>>18401236I doubt they could do well in the South, they'd need to haul ass elsewhere to make up for it.
Carter's campaign speeches were incredibly boring and poorly delivered. The guy was an engineer by training, he was a nerd and did not have the animated Chad personality you need for this job.
i think Carter's post-presidential career was quite admirable but he clearly did not have what it took to be president
>>18401013neither campaigned where they needed to>Ford neglected the Northeast and Midwest while Carter neglected the West>Ford could have kept Rockefeller, not insulted the people of NYC, and carried that state and with it the election even supposing WI and OH still flip>instead he goes with Bob Dole who was from an electorally unimportant and already safe Republican state>Dole was kind of tied to Nixon but he was too liberal for the Goldwater wing of the party, too conservative for the Rockefeller wing, and not conservative enough for the South>if Carter went with Frank Church he'd carry the Western states easily
Who would the Republicans have run in '76 if the whole Nixon fiasco never happened? If they played their cards right they could have won six consecutive elections
>>18401884Probably Reagan.
>>18401897The country wasn’t ready for Reagan in 76. It needed the foreign policy humiliations and hyperinflation of the late 1970s to realize he was the right man for the job.
>>18401933as same, it was not ready for Nixon in 60. they needed STHTF in the late 60s for him to get elected.
>>18401259Dole voted against the 55 mph speed limit so he'll always be a hero and a patriot for that.
>>18401884>>18401897Nixon fucking hated Reagan. He made it clear to everyone that he wanted John Connally as the nominee in ‘76
>>18401933Not wrong>>18401946Reagan was the only republican with the political weight to be able to in 76. Yes, Nixon would have pushed for Connally; but that would have received pushback; since it had only been so recently that Connally had switched from Democrat to Republican. Yes, Reagan had done the same thing, but he had already done enough post-switch work to earn his national attention.Since the original question was "had watergate not happened"; there is a potential way it could have been Connally... if, when Agnew was forced to resign (which would have happened anyway), he had chosen Connally as the VP replacement, setting him up for a handing off in 76. But he would have still had to have gotten through Reagan, who wasn't going to go away quietly, even in 76
>>18401952Nixon would’ve ratfucked Reagan, planted some shit in the media like he did with Muskie. Especially since none of that stuff comes to light here
once the initial excitement of being not Nixon wore off, everyone became quickly disillusioned with Carter
>>18401946they were contemporaries and rivals just like he was with Kennedy. mf-ers can get real competitive.
>>18401959The disillusionment came with the cabinet shuffling in July ‘79. Contrary to popular belief, the “crisis of confidence” speech was very well received by the public and he was getting letters of support from average citizens regarding it. Forcing out James Schlesinger at the Department of Energy came off to the public as an indecisive flip flop after the speech he’d given. Even then most people don’t realize Carter spent seven months (September ‘79 - March ‘80) consistently beating Reagan in every poll taken
>>18401973First of all Carter was already unpopular before the speech. As for the speech being received well you're right but that too didn't matter much. He was only beating Reagan in polls due to rally around the flag effect in the earlier months of the hostage crisis.
>>18402532First of all I was talking about disillusionment, not unpopularity, those are two different things. As for it not mattering too much well you’re right but that’s again because he flip flopped in his actions regarding the crisis and what the solutions towards it were, giving off an air of indecision. Carter beating Reagan in the polls was a trend that had already been happening long before the hostage situation and rally effect. The idea of Reagan getting the nomination during ‘78 and indeed ‘79 was perceived as the best outcome Carter could hope for, both by his own team and by outside observers. It was Howard Baker, the fellow southerner, that Carter was said to fear most. Baker, in contrast to Reagan, was consistently beating Carter in ‘79 polling
>>18402555Only explanation I can see to that is that Reagan's politics still being considered fringe at the time combined with him not being the nominee yet made poll respondents not pick him but still feel safe with picking Baker. The bottom line is Carter was not "beating Reagan". Gallup had his approval ratings at 30% in September '79.
>>18402557>Gallup had his approval ratings at 30% in September '79That same month the polling had Carter ahead of Reagan by a 52-45 margin >It wasn’t that Carter was winning so much as that Reagan was losingwhatever soothes your autism m8
>>18402586If you followed pre-election polling patterns you would know pre-primary polls are notoriously unrelaible. John Edwards led Dubya by double-digits at some point in 2004. Anyway my point is if the election was actually held in September '79, with conventions and all, Reagan would have won.
