Would Gerald Ford have been a successful President if elected in 1976?

[Down the Gurney]

I don't know anyone who would've voted for him and then said "wow Carter was the better pick." I think he would've done average.

I have to partially agree. All of the failures of the Carter administration, i.e. stagflation and the diplomatic/military failures in Iran, were all outside caused by factors that a Ford presidency would have failed to mitigate.

On the other hand, the Rs would have been blamed the the late 70s problems so we would have had to go through years of more Dem failures before we had the strongly conservative direction that took us out of our failiure.

Just a thought.

[Down the Gurney]

He would've definitely been better than Carter. By '76 he'd stood up to some of the prevailing detente conventional wisdom & would've been much more prepared than Carter as of January 20th, 1977. Carter took about two years to get some sense, a learning curve Fird had the advantage of having had in his first term. Hell, he'd probably be more popular with the Democratic-controlled Congress than Carter the outsider ever was.

While I oppose detante as much as everyone, I don't think it would have been a good idea to confront the Soviets in the 70s when our army was only number one in doing smack.
I have to agree about congress, though. It is far easier to unite barely reformed segregationists with strong conservatives that it is to united barely reformed segregationists with New Left pinkos.