Though I wasn’t quite old enough to vote, I do remember when Reagan gave Ford a run for his money. This thread got me to thinking:
What if Reagan had been the nominee in '76. Do you think he could have taken Carter? Why? Why not?
I LOVE “what if” questions like this because little quirks like it is what our history is made of. Personally I believe that even though the economy was going to shit, the only thing that pushed Carter over the edge was Fords pardon of Nixon.
Reagan would not have had that sin against him, and would have won in '76. What say you? And why?
Hard to say. Though I’m a big Reagan fan, it’s no secret that he was and remains a polarizing figure in American politics. The role Jimmy Carter’s disastrous presidency played in getting him elected in the first place can’t be discounted.
So I’ll just throw this out for the time being, to add to the fun.
Remember- Carter defeated Ford by 1.5 million popular votes, but only by 10,000 votes in Ohio and 500 votes in Hawaii, and had both states switched, Carter would have lost the Electoral College.
True, Reagan was much more conservative than Ford and would have lost some support in the middle, but Reagan was also a much better public speaker, campaigner, and fund-raiser than Ford was. Reagan also wouldn’t have been weighed down- as Ford was- by the Nixon issue, by any government scandal (he’d have been as much an outsider as Carter was).
And Reagan probably wouldn’t have made as confused a statement about Poland as Ford did during the debates.
So Reagan would have won easily. And then gone down to defeat in 1980 as the economy tanked, and Ted Kennedy would become President. And then get shot by John Hinckley, throwing this nation into convulsions on a scale never before seen.
Yeesh. I like Reagan, but maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t run in '76.
Sua, perhaps you don’t recall that Carter only won by the skin of his teeth. While the Republicans took a beating in congressional races in the mid-'70’s, they were certainly competitive on the presidential level.
The Watergate scandal was primarily associated with Nixon, and the pardon with Ford. Absolutely none of this damaged Reagan politically.
For a race in which “A Republican was not going to win”, Ford must have been an amazing campaigner, without flaw in action or speech, to come that close, or to get 48% to Carter’s 50%.
Or, perhaps, maybe, the country felt that Watergate was Nixon’s action, not the action of the RNC in general.
Ford, while never elected, represented the established, existing party administration. With the exception Truman, almost no one has won the general election when the existing administration faced a serious internal party challenge.
Examples: McCarthy/Kennedy/Johnson - then Humphrey lost. Kennedy/Carter in 1980. Bush in 1992.
Serious internal challenges are just a possible cause of defeat, but reflect a serious existing division within the party itself.
Possibly true. I think Ford was damaged to an extent by Reagan’s bid for the nomination. It certainly diverted resources away from the general election, when that happened.
Of course, Carter had opposition in '76 as well, so this balances out.
What if Ford had chosen not to run, though, and Reagan had lined delegates up early through primary and caucus wins (I’d assume opposition would have come from Rockefeller or another liberal Republican.)
Then it’s another race entirely. I think without the party warfare and the pardon issue, Reagan wins.
About all we can say for sure is that, if Reagan had won in 1976, it would have been a more difficult fight than he faced in 1980. And, in many ways, it would have been a more difficult presidency. By 1980, the country had been softened up by four years of gas lines, inflation, and the failure of detente as evidenced by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and was willing to give Reagan some breathing room.
Had he taken office in 1977, Reagan would have faced a much more hostile Congress, and he would have inherited mega-incompetent Arthur Burns as Fed chairman. And, it would have been up to him to deal with the tottering Shah of Iran. One can only speculate . . . but somehow, the thought of Reagan as president during the Saturday Night Fever era gives me the heebie-jeebies. He just seems so Eighties.
I don’t think that Democratic Hawaii would’ve gone for Reagan over Carter in 1976. I also don’t think that the Republican machinery - controlled by Ford - would’ve easily united under or worked very hard for Reagan. Also, I think Reagan learned a lot about campaigning even though he lost to Ford, and that helped make Reagan into an even stronger candidate in 1980. Summing up, I still think Jimmy would’ve been president.
Actually, Carter was an utter unknown - a one-term governor of Georgia with no established reputation. Ford’s inability to fend off this upstart is strong evidence that there was a strong “anyone but a Republican” sentiment in the country after Watergate.
Certainly not. In 1974, the GOP lost 1/4 of the seats it held in the House of Representatives. The Dems gained 49 seats, even though it already had a hefty majority in the House.
In the Senate in 1974, the GOP lost 5 seats. Cite.
I can’t find a cite for this, but I recall that the freshman Congressional class of 1974 was referred to as the “Watergate class,” because so many were new Democratic congresspersons owed their election to Watergate. In my own (rabidly Republican) home district in Pennsylvania - the 7th - Bob Edgar, a very liberal Democrat, took the House seat.
So yes, the electorate was intent on punishing the Republicans for Watergate. 1976 was the first presidential election held after Nixon’s resignation, thus the first opportunity to punish the Republicans on the Presidential level.
Would this have still been as strong an issue, though, if Ford wasn’t running? The pardon issue was hurting him personally, Sua.
You seem to be saying Carter would beat all comers, and I find no evidence that this is so. Reagan certainly had no problem beating Carter in '80, admittedly in an America left worse off by Carter.
Reagan beat Carter because Reagan could point to Carter’s numerous failures while in office. In 1976 Carter didn’t have a negative record. In a 1976 presidential debate against Carter Reagan couldn’t say, “There you go again” because Jimmy hadn’t done anything bad yet.
Further, presidential debates themselves were not a staple of the campaign. There hadn’t been one since 1960, and given Reagan’s experience as an actor, Carter would’ve been well advised to not put his rather wooden debate technique up against Reagan’s polished style.
Moreover, Reagan’s trademark of running against big government probably wouldn’t have gone over as well as it did later because big government per se hadn’t been discredited yet. Remember, the Republicans under Nixon extended big government too, having created the EPA and invented the concept of block funding grants from the Feds to the States, among other things.
Well, of course there is no evidence; there is no evidence of nuthing in this thread - it’s an alternative history argument, which are fun, but they are all opinion.
CON
One big thing that Carter had going for him was that he was an outsider, campaigning against a discredited and corrupt insiders government in DC. Reagan could have negated that.
PRO
However, as has been pointed out, the Republicans had spent the previous 2 years being shredded by Watergate. Ford offered a fresh, competent & dignified way to unite the Party. Reagan would have had to overturn and destroy that, thenunite the Republicans (not just the conventioneers and party activists who were more conservative and gave Ford fits) but the more middle rank and file then get everyone Ford got in the general election plus a few more.
IMHO Cater would have ended up beating Reagan by a slightly greater margin than he beat Ford by.
I think Carter would have done better against Reagan in 1976 than Ford. Ford may have pardoned Nixon, and slipped on a tarmac or two - but Reagan still had a bit further to go at that time to really establish himself as a national political figure.
Does anyone remember (I have only seen this on C-Span years ago) when the Panama Canal Treaty was being debated? Reagan appeared on television and very firmly contested that treaty in a debate against William F. Buckley - who isn’t a patsy when it comes to political argument. In many ways that was when the conservative torch passed (unwillingly) from old school Republicans to the current Reaganites. I also believe that was when people, even those who were opponents, really started to see Reagan as someone who was presidential material.
Perhaps I attach too much importance to that event. But wasn’t that significant? This was back when there were only three or four channels, and many voting adults would have been glued to the set. As a Democrat, I still have to say Reagan was masterful in that program.
On the one hand, one of the reasons (if not the reason) Ford lost was because he performed poorly in the South. Reagan would have almost certainly done better.
However, on the other hand, he might have lost some of the voters that would have voted for Ford in the Midwest (the pasrt east of the Mississippi).
All in all, only two things I can say for certain:
The winner in 1976 would have lost in 1980, and
Reagan would have had to pick a party moderate for his VP nomination, for the same reason that Ford ultimately picked Doel as his VP nominee, and I haven’t determined if he would have stayed with Schweicker or not.
