Former President Gerald Ford died on December 26th at age 93. For the past week, there has been lots of media coverage on TV. The most often said item was that his September 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon was the primacy cause of his defeat in 1976 election. The other item is that he "healed America."
I disagree. I think that's what the MSM and liberal Democrats would like us to believe. Partisan Democrats didn't like his pardon as a trial would have continued to drag down the Republican party. I think many Americans realized that Ford could not effectly govern with a big trial going on. However, Ford only barely survived the Republican nomination (1187-1070) after a strong challenge from Ronald Reagan. That says there was a lot of conservative Republicans who were not happy with Ford. Since Ford lost only by 57 electoral votes, and the popular vote was 40.8M to 39.1M. 47M people voted Republican in 1972 and 44M in 1980. That means only a minor amount of conservatives needed to stay home. While he gained no friends by pardoning Nixon, his "moderate" policies likely lost him some conservative friends.
It resembles Bush's approval ratings today, which however around the mid 30s. Liberals have always hated GW Bush. However for a few years now, Bush has been drifting leftward. This has caused him to lose support of conservative. However, liberals still hate him. His leftward lurches has won him no new friends.
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