# Was Gerald Ford a good President?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [June 23, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661 "2017-06-23T02:14:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2017, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/21 "2017-06-23T19:59:22Z")
I wish Jerry’s breed of Republicans still existed. If they did, I’d probably be one.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2017, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/22 "2017-06-23T20:08:12Z")
> [@yezlles](#):
>
> The pardon was supportable, and is now a more accepted stance with the benefit of hindsight.
No it wasn’t. The process was necessary in order for healing to take place. The process was not allowed to occur, and instead of healing, further deterioration of the political climate took place.
> [@yezlles](#):
>
> Others may have a different opinion but they can’t go so far as successfully assail Ford’s decent unpretentious character.
It’s not an opinion; it is a fact. Ford’s “decent unpretentious character” may remain intact, but he erred grievously.
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### Author:  [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2017, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/23 "2017-06-23T20:17:52Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#):
>
> The 70s outmatched all three men who became president during that decade. Gerald Ford was perhaps less outmatched than the other two. But he never had the dynamism of Reagan, which was what was needed to lead us out of the morass that we had wandered into in our political universe at the time. Carter had the same problem. I don’t think it would have mattered whether Reagan was a Republican or a Democrat; either way, the nation needed someone who was a bit of an ideologue to shake it up. Indeed, Teddy Kennedy tried on the Democratic side, and his success against an incumbent of his own party shows just how much the nation wanted someone to lead.
>
> Gerald Ford’s legacy is sadly such things as being almost assassinated, the jokes about being clumsy (“The other day, President Ford stabbed himself with his fork. Five Secret Service agents wrestled the fork to the ground.”), the impotency of the US in the face of the various violent occurrences around the world, and, of course, the Nixon Pardon. Even Carter had the Camp David Accords to tout.
Only two people became President in the 1970s. Ford in 1974 and Carter in 1977.
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### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2017, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/24 "2017-06-23T23:54:08Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> Only two people became President in the 1970s. Ford in 1974 and Carter in 1977.
Nixon became president (again) in the 70s. He also was president for three years of the 70s before that election. 😉
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2017, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/25 "2017-06-24T01:54:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I wonder if Ford was secretly glad he didn’t have to face four more years of this.
I think the opposite is more likely. The Fords long held contempt for the Reagans due to Ronnie’s run at the nomination in '76. I suspect that Ford desperately wanted to win his own election to legitimize his status as a President.
…
Another interesting legacy of Ford. He fully embraced the business opportunities available to an ex-President, and used his fame to grow quite wealthy by joining the boards of several companies after he left the White House. Ford really set the tone for becoming rich from the office, which Bill Clinton seems to have gleefully followed.
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/gerald-ford-changed-everything-by-making-money-off-his-presidency-2015-6](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/gerald-ford-changed-everything-by-making-money-off-his-presidency-2015-6)
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2017, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/26 "2017-06-24T22:17:14Z")
New York City’s not all that fond of him.
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### Author:  [@ThisIsTheEnd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisIsTheEnd)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/27 "2017-06-24T23:08:51Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> New York City’s not all that fond of him.
That was the genesis of Twitter.
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### Author:  [@Silver\_lining](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_lining)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2017, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/28 "2017-06-26T23:19:49Z")
> [@Reddy\_Mercury](#):
>
> I’ve always had a great fondness for Jerry Ford and feel, with hindsight, he should’ve gotten a second term of his own. What do you guys feel about ol’ Jerry?
He was the right man for the times, an honorable man. And an average president.
Carter took the USA south in many areas. If Ford had won, things could have been different.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/29 "2017-06-26T23:42:33Z")
He was a caretaker at a time when the country was tired and just wanted to curl up in the womb position.
Pardoning Nixon was a decision someone had to make knowing half the country would hate him whichever way he decided…He made his decision and sure enough, half the country hated him.
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### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/30 "2017-06-29T16:32:25Z")
Well he is one of three Republican presidents since Coolidge (the other two being Eisenhower and GHW Bush) who I don’t have a visceral disdain for so I’ll give him that.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/31 "2017-06-29T17:23:35Z")
Hard to judge … it was a particularly bad time to be President … as I understand, Ford stated years after that he had a choice … either prosecute Nixon or do everything else the President was supposed to do … he chose to do everything else … I can’t blame him but it did (perhaps) set a bad precedent … would Nelson Rockefeller done any better?
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2017, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-gerald-ford-a-good-president/789661/32 "2017-06-29T22:15:38Z")
I liked Ford and understood he operated under a severed handicap. He never ran for VP. He was appointed and then ascended to the Presidency. Congress saw him as a caretaker. He couldn’t pursue an ambitious agenda.
I would have loved seeing how he did in a elected term as President. He had served in the house for twenty-five years and was respected & well liked. He understood Congress and how to get legislation passed.
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