The Spirit of '76.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

The Spirit of '76.

Table of Contents.

Part I: Memories of Kansas City.

Part II: The Other Guy.

Part III: Rendezvous with Destiny.

Part IV: Into the Mystic.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Part I: Memories of Kansas City.

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[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Hell yeah, dude.

[Mike Thick]

Superb!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Superb!

[Kingpoleon]

All's well that ends well.

[NHI]

LOVE THIS TL

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Another update either tonight or tomorrow. Just gotta format it.

[KingSweden]

Niiiiiiiice

[Oppo]

Superb!

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Part II: The Other Guy.

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Third Ballot
George HW. Bush: 71.48%-1,614 delegates.
James Buckley: 26.84%-606 delegates.
Uncommitted: 1.11%-25 delegates.
Robert Dole: 0.59%-11 delegates.
Elliot Richardson: 0.04%-1 delegate.
Howard Baker: 0.04%-1 delegate.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Amazing.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Amazing.

The format is based on A Second Chance actually.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Amazing.

The format is based on A Second Chance actually.

Ah, one of my two Unfinished Projects. #RIP

[Former Senator Haslam2020]

Update pls

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Exams are finished after today, so expect an update this week!

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Part III: Rendezvous with Destiny

Tuesday, August 17th, 1976: Bush wins VP nomination after multiple ballots.

   

KANSAS CITY, KS: CIA Director George Bush resigned his position abruptly following his whirlwind nomination for the Vice Presidency. Bush’s path to the Vice Presidency unfolded over the course of a few hours, after Governor Reagan’s campaign successfully passed from the floor of the convention that forced an open and early vote for a Vice Presidential nomination. President Ford, who was yet to decide on a Vice Presidential nominee at the time, asked Senator Robert Dole (R-KS) to join him on the ticket.

The first ballot saw the entire Texas delegation cast their lot behind CIA Director George Bush, who had the backing of Anne Armstrong. A solid showing on the first ballot convinced Bush to enter the race, which was largely contested between Senators Dole and James Buckley (C-NY), a more right leaning alternative. Reagan’s selection, Richard Schweiker (R-PA) lingered in a distant third on the first ballot. Elliot Richards, the former Attorney General, also entered the race for the Vice Presidential nomination and locked up much of the support of the northeastern delegations. His support failed to materialize by the second ballot, and he removed his name from contention shortly afterwards.

As the third ballot approached, Bush managed to gain assurances from both Reagan and Ford that his nomination would be respected by either candidate if nominated. With this news reaching the floor of the convention, both Schweiker and Dole announced they would both end their campaigns for the Vice Presidency in order to prevent the nomination of Senator Buckley, who had never received more than a quarter of the conventions support. In the course of merely three hours, George HW. Bush had gone from CIA Director to prospective Vice President. It was a feat that he would toast with champagne alongside close aides James Baker, Jennifer Fitzgerald, and a young Karl Rove that afternoon as Reagan and Ford prepare to duke it out tomorrow.

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1976 Republican National Convention: 2,258 Delegates, 1,129 needed for nomination.
Ronald Reagan: 50.31%-1,136 delegates.
Gerald Ford: 49.65%-1,121 delegates
Elliot Richardson: 0.04%-1 delegate.

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“This wasn’t what I expected. But the result has been accepted. I’m proud to endorse the next President of the United States, Governor Ronald Wilson Reagan of California! I’m proud of my campaign in which we fought as foes; I’m even prouder tonight to join with him and stand behind him as a friend!"-Gerald Ford concession speech.

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Mr. President, Mrs. Ford, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Vice President-to-be, the distinguished guests here, you ladies and gentlemen.  I was going to say fellow Republicans here but those who are watching from a distance include all those millions of Democrats and independents who I know are looking for a cause around which to rally and which I believe we can give them.  

Mr. President, the kindness and generosity you have shown Nancy and I on the campaign trail and the determined leadership you have shown in the White House as President have inspired us and the nation, and we owe an incalculable debt to you as a nation because of your selfless actions and honorable conduct in office. History will judge Gerald Ford as the President who restored America’s sense of purpose in a time when cynicism threatened to reign supreme.

We as Republicans offer something that the people of this country are crying out for: they are crying out for leadership. Leadership that will restore our economy. Leadership that will restore the soundness of our currency. Leadership that will restore honor and integrity to government.  Leadership that will say to all nations of the world that “yes, we want peace, but we will maintain the strength required that we have peace.” Leadership that will stand up for liberty and freedom around the globe. Leadership that will stand toe to toe with the red menace that enslaves people across Eurasia. But most importantly, we offer leadership to restore hope in America.

If I could just take a moment, I had an assignment the other day.  Someone asked me to write a letter for a time capsule that is going to be opened in Los Angeles a hundred years from now, on our nation’s Tricentennial. It sounded like an easy assignment.  They suggested I write about the problems and issues of the day.  And I set out to do so, riding down the coast in an automobile, looking at the blue Pacific out on one side and the Santa Ynez Mountains on the other, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was going to be that beautiful a hundred years from now as it was on that summer day.

And then as I tried to write-let your own minds turn to that task.  You’re going to write for people a hundred years from now who know all about us, we know nothing about them.  We don’t know what kind of world they’ll be living in.  And suddenly I thought to myself, “If I write of the problems, they’ll be the domestic problems of which the campaign has largely been centered around; the challenges confronting us, the erosion of freedom taken place under Democratic rule in this country, the invasion of private rights, the controls and restrictions on the vitality of the great free economy that we enjoy.”

These are the challenges that we must meet, and then again there is that challenge of the world we live in. We live in a world in which the great powers have aimed and poised at each other horrible missiles of destruction, nuclear weapons that can in a matter of minutes arrive at each other’s country and destroy virtually the entire civilized world we live in. We have a duty-for our children and our grandchildren and our grandchildren’s grandchildren-to stop these missiles from ever being launched. One hundred years from now, somewhere in the United States, perhaps even this convention center in this city, our party will be scheduled to convene again to select a presidential nominee. And they shall know whether those missiles were fired.

Whether they will have the freedom that we have known up until now will depend on what we do here.  Will they look back with appreciation and say, “Thank God for those people in 1976 who headed off that loss of freedom?  Who kept us now a hundred years later free?  Who kept our world from nuclear destruction? And if we fail they probably won’t get to read or hear of this speech at all because it spoke of individual freedom and they won’t be allowed to talk of that or read of it.

This is our challenge and this is why we’re here in this hall tonight.  Better than we’ve ever done before, we’ve got to quit talking to each other and about each other and past each other go out and start communicating to the world that we may be fewer in numbers than we’ve ever been but we carry the message they’re waiting for.  We must go forth from here united, determined and what a great general said a few years ago is true: “There is no substitute for victory.”

Thank you my friends, thank you! God Bless you, God bless President Ford, and God bless America!
NOTE: The above is an edited version of Reagan’s OTL speech.

[KingSweden]

Glad you kept Reagan's 76 convention address. IMO the best speech he gave in his career, at least my personal favorite

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Fantastic (I didn't have the patience to read his acceptance speech).

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Part IV: Into the Mystic

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As the Republican Convention drew to a close, the Carter campaign found themselves preparing for a new foe. Pat Caddell, the campaign’s pollster, had commissioned a series of polls ahead of the GOP convention to determine the campaign’s strength against Governor Reagan. The responses they got sent them mixed signals. Personally popular and widely considered more “presidential” than Carter, voters also feared Reagan’s political agenda was too far to the right. Nowhere was this fear stronger than among union voters, where many working class voters felt Reagan was hostile to organized labor. This along with the scars of Watergate, the sluggish economy, and the collective sense of humiliation after the fall of Saigon translated into a nearly twenty point lead for Governor Carter in the polls.

“Mama” began Carter’s phone call home to Plains that night, “we’re heading towards a landside!” The Carter campaign’s confidence was mirrored by the enthusiasm of the Reagan campaign heading out of the convention. Though their own polls showed similar numbers, the Governor seemed cool and calm and was convinced of their eventual victory. Nancy Reagan was more realistic, and was concerned about the direction of the campaign. Sears had scraped together the nomination at the last minute, but Nancy saw no room for error in the general election campaign.

Just hours after Reagan’s nomination, the ultimate Reagan insiders-Lynn Nofzinger, Mike Deaver, and Charles Z. Wick met with William Casey, the recently retired head of the Export-Import Bank and a fierce anti-communist who had steered donors to the Reagan campaign. Casey was willing to take on the role of campaign manager, though the removal of Sears would be a tough sell to the press after the triumph at the convention. They’d need someone who could coldly and calmly scare Sears into submission. The Governor had someone on hand for that sole purpose. They went to Nancy.

The Sears firing, which quietly took place the following morning but was not announced for a week, saw the Reagan inner circle both close off and expand simultaneously. While it became clear after the firing that Nancy Reagan led “troika” had the final say, new voices were not excluded. Thomas Ellis, a longtime aide and ally of Jesse Helms who helped Reagan win the crucial North Carolina primary only to bedevil him at the convention as the principal operative of the “Draft Buckley” movement, was brought on board to conduct the campaign in the “border states” of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, where Reagan hoped to capitalize on suburban voters who were amiable to his optimistic rhetoric.

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[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Assuming that Casey takes on the role he did in real life, him leading the CIA so soon after Watergate would likely be even more contentious.