#1976 election

[politicalrpf]

Gerald Ford poster, 1976.

[deadpresidents]

Related to the JQA question: was Reagan's team serious about offering the VP to Gerald Ford? And had he accepted and had Reagan won, how do you think Reagan/Ford would have worked together? Would Reagan have drawn on Ford's POTUS experience or exiled him to the Blair House?

Oh yes, Reagan's campaign was very serious about offering the Vice Presidency to former President Ford in 1980. It went right down to the wire and fell apart at the last minute because Ford gave an interview to Walter Cronkite at the Republican National Convention where he stated that in order for him to accept the Vice Presidency and join the ticket as Reagan's running mate, he expected an arrangement that would have vastly expanded the role of the Vice President, allowed Ford to have veto power over political appointments, and basically be co-President alongside Reagan. That was a non-starter for Reagan and his campaign, so once they heard that they suddenly shifted gears and offered the Vice Presidency to George H.W. Bush.

Interestingly, Reagan considered Ford as a potential running mate because Reagan was not sold on Bush. Reagan had been frustrated by Bush, who was Reagan's only serious challenger during the 1980 Republican Presidential primaries. Reagan had not yet warmed to Bush and was concerned that Bush was too moderate. What makes that especially odd is that Gerald Ford was much more moderate than Bush, and there had been legitimate bad blood between Reagan and Ford dating back to the 1976 election. In 1976, Reagan challenged Ford for the GOP nomination despite the fact that Ford was the incumbent President. They had a bitter primary fight that wasn't settled until at the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City when Ford squeaked by with the nomination. But Reagan's challenge was a significant factor in costing Ford the Presidency against Jimmy Carter that November. Ford was forced to move further to the right, dumped Vice President Nelson Rockefeller for the far more conservative Senator Bob Dole (For the rest of this life, Ford regretted dumping Vice President Rockefeller for Dole in order to placate conservatives), and in the general election, Reagan resisted opportunities to help campaign for President Ford in areas where Reagan could have helped Ford's chances. In the aftermath of the 1976 election, Ford straight up disliked Ronald Reagan, so it was remarkable that they came so close to sharing the ticket four years later.

As the 1980 campaign cycle kicked off, Ford actually considered running for President again. After all, he had barely lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976 (and was rapidly gaining on Carter in the final days of the '76 race) and Carter was a very vulnerable incumbent President. While polls showed Ford matching up well against President Carter if he jumped in the 1980 race, the harder part likely would have been running against Reagan in the GOP primaries. After barely surviving Reagan's challenge for the 1976 nomination, Ford recognized that many Republicans saw 1980 as Reagan's time for the nomination.

Once Reagan locked down the 1980 Republican nomination and the GOP Convention kicked off in Detroit, it was apparently Reagan who made the suggestion of a super-ticket with Ford as his running mate. When Reagan and Ford met face-to-face in Detroit, they buried the hatchet and moved forward from any remaining bitterness related to 1976. As news reports from the convention began to mention that Reagan and Ford were considering a Dream Team ticket, things got pretty dramatic. Ford suggested that, if he were to become Reagan's Vice President, he'd also like to solidify his supercharged Vice Presidential role by simultaneously serving as White House Chief of Staff -- an idea that President Ford rejected when HIS Vice President Nelson Rockefeller suggested a similar role during their Administration.

But even that wasn't an immediate deal-breaker for Reagan, who genuinely believed a Dream Team ticket of Reagan/Ford would guarantee his election in November. But as Ford went upstairs to sit down for a live interview with Walter Cronkite during the CBS News coverage of the Republican Convention, the anchor pressed Ford on what kind of deal he might require to actually serve as Reagan's Vice President. As they debated the potential role, Cronkite asked Ford if "it's got to be something like a co-Presidency?" and Ford answered that Reagan "really ought to consider" the idea.

Reagan and his team were among the millions watching live and the idea of sharing the job that Reagan had spent the past 15 years working towards winning was a bridge too far. Those around Ford were pretty sure he realized the potential complications of a Reagan/Ford Dream Team ticket, too. Ford was also worried about what a potential move back to Washington would mean for the health and sobriety of his beloved wife, Betty, who was supportive as always but not necessarily excited about the prospect of Ford diving back into his political career.

The delegates in Detroit's Joe Louis Arena were still buzzing about the drama and potential of a Reagan/Ford super ticket and Cronkite was speaking to CBS reporters who were on the floor of the convention when correspondent Lesley Stahl breathlessly interrupted him to announce that members of the Reagan campaign were telling her that it was a done deal: Reagan had chosen Bush. With Cronkite laughing at the craziness and the drama of the night, Stahl continued to let the world know that numerous Reagan campaign aides were confirming that Reagan had chosen Bush as his running mate, not Ford.

Why did it fall apart and why did Ford suggest a role for the Vice President that he certainly wouldn't have accepted during his own Presidency just a few years earlier? Some political observers wondered if Ford was getting some revenge against Reagan because the former actor and former California Governor's challenge for the 1976 Republican nomination arguably helped cause Ford's narrow loss in the general election. Maybe Ford was stringing Reagan along, with no intention of actually returning to Washington, especially as Ronald Reagan's Vice President. But that is totally uncharacteristic of Gerald Ford. Dick Cheney, who served as Ford's White House Chief of Staff and remained very close to Ford throughout the former President's long life, felt it was much simpler and more straightforward. Cheney told Ford's biographer, Richard Norton Smith, "I had the feeling that Ford didn't really want the job and one way he could get out of it was ask for the moon." Later, Ford would also tell a few reporters whom he trusted that one of his goals during the Convention was actually to help George H.W. Bush overcome Reagan's hesitance to make Bush the Vice Presidential candidate. The dramatic back-and-forth over Ford's potential "requirements" to join the ticket with Reagan, stretched late into the night towards the end of the Convention and by the time Reagan and Ford mutually decided that the Dream Team ticket wasn't a good idea, Reagan needed a running mate quick. So, that possibly helped ensure that Bush was the candidate who Reagan called when he and Ford went their separate ways.

(Incidentally, a Reagan/Ford ticket could have caused some difficulties with the Electoral College. In 1980, Reagan and Ford were both official residents of California. Because of this, under the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, California's Electors would not have been able to cast their Electoral votes for both Reagan and Ford. With California being the most populous state and having the most Electoral votes -- 45 in 1980 -- in the case of a close election, that could have been disastrous unless one of the candidates was able to change their official residence prior to Election Day, as Dick Cheney did in 2000 when we switched his residence from Texas back to Wyoming in order to protect the Electoral votes from Texas for him and Presidential candidate George W. Bush.)

[evilhorse]

Heck, the only clown I liked in last month’s election was Howard the Duck—an’ even he was a quack!

[politicalrpf]

Jimmy Carter campaign handkerchief, 1976.

[deadpresidents]

I’m curious about the friendship between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter (and presidential friendships in general,) I’d like to know what that looked like for them. Would they go and do things together or was it just a few phone calls a year?

Their relationship is really interesting because during the 1976 campaign and in the years right afterward, Ford and Carter genuinely did not like each other. It wasn't a normal, opponent vs. opponent rivalry, either. They straight-up disliked one another, and that was extremely unusual for Gerald Ford, who got along with practically everybody he met throughout his life, rarely had bad things to say about other people, and was almost physically incapable of being unkind to others, no matter what side of the political spectrum they belonged to.

What changed was when President Reagan sent all the living former Presidents -- Nixon, Ford, and Carter -- to Cairo in 1981 to attend Anwar Sadat's funeral following Sadat's assassination. The three former Presidents all flew together on one of the planes normally used as Air Force One, and there was some tension at the beginning, but the person who broke the ice, oddly enough, ended up being Richard Nixon. Ford then suggested that the former Presidents should drop all formalities and just refer to one another as Dick, Jerry, and Jimmy. As Ford remembered, "I guess we figured we were gonna be in a plane together forty hours, more or less, and in order to be pleasant, it was a good idea to just wipe the slate clean, which we did." Ford and Carter eventually started bonding, partly over the fact that Ronald Reagan was a major reason why each of them ultimately lost their respective bids for re-election.

At the time, Carter was having trouble building his Presidential Library, and he asked Ford for some advice since Ford had just recently opened his library. When Carter mentioned he was having some issues raising money for the library, Ford offered to come down and appear at fundraisers for him, and asked Carter to return the favor and visit the Ford Library for an event.

As Thomas M. DeFrank writes in his 2007 book, Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations With Gerald R. Ford (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO):

"Carter accepted, triggering a Jimmy-Jerry tag team match extending over several years. These back-scratching appearances didn't convert them into friends, but the relationship was notably friendlier. They began staying in regular contact, talking on the phone, and exchanging birthday greetings. Their contacts were sufficiently public that some of Ford's closest political allies grumbled that he was spending altogether too much time with Carter -- not unlike similar complaints from [George H.W.] Bush 41 partisans today that he hangs around Bill Clinton too much. Ford brushed off the complaints. Beyond their shared practical interests in Presidential Libraries, another unifying bond was at play. Both ex-Presidents had strong reasons not to like Ronald Reagan, which helped cement their ties even though neither one would ever admit it publicly. To one old Ford friend, the calculation was simple: 'Once you did something for his library or museum, you were a friend for life.'"

As they got older, Ford and Carter would sometimes make joint appearances at Presidential Libraries or universities, or events for important causes, and they even wrote a joint op-ed during the Monica Lewinsky scandal urging Congress to censure President Clinton instead of impeaching him. They felt it was a bad precedent (which it has clearly turned out to be) and would be bad for the country. Unlike Ford, Jimmy Carter wasn't very easy-going or personable, so there were times when their friendship would get a little frayed. Ford once told a friend, "Well, you know Jimmy. He can be a real pain in the ass, but we get along."

Eventually, they promised one another that they would deliver the eulogy if the other former President died first. President Ford died first, on December 26, 2006, and Carter attended every event during the several days of ceremonies, from Ford's lying in state at the U.S. Capitol, to the national funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral, and traveled with Ford's family and the former President's remains to Ford's hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. At the church service in Grand Rapids, Carter delivered his eulogy, and also attended the private interment service when Ford was buried as at his Presidential Library. In his eulogy, Carter repeated the gracious first words he had said when delivering his Inaugural Address on the day he took over the White House from Ford in 1977, "For myself and for my nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land." It was a remarkable relationship between two former Presidents who, again, genuinely disliked one another for quite some time.

[politicalrpf]

"Campaign '76" by Tony Auth, 1976.

[politicalrpf]

Gerald Ford campaign pamphplet, 1976.

[politicalrpf]

October 4th, 1976 cover of TIME magazine.