#election 1976

[mapsontheweb]

The United States Presidential election of 1976

[deadpresidents]

I’m curious about the friendship between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter (and presidential friendships in general,) I’d like to know what that looked like for them. Would they go and do things together or was it just a few phone calls a year?

Their relationship is really interesting because during the 1976 campaign and in the years right afterward, Ford and Carter genuinely did not like each other. It wasn't a normal, opponent vs. opponent rivalry, either. They straight-up disliked one another, and that was extremely unusual for Gerald Ford, who got along with practically everybody he met throughout his life, rarely had bad things to say about other people, and was almost physically incapable of being unkind to others, no matter what side of the political spectrum they belonged to.

What changed was when President Reagan sent all the living former Presidents -- Nixon, Ford, and Carter -- to Cairo in 1981 to attend Anwar Sadat's funeral following Sadat's assassination. The three former Presidents all flew together on one of the planes normally used as Air Force One, and there was some tension at the beginning, but the person who broke the ice, oddly enough, ended up being Richard Nixon. Ford then suggested that the former Presidents should drop all formalities and just refer to one another as Dick, Jerry, and Jimmy. As Ford remembered, "I guess we figured we were gonna be in a plane together forty hours, more or less, and in order to be pleasant, it was a good idea to just wipe the slate clean, which we did." Ford and Carter eventually started bonding, partly over the fact that Ronald Reagan was a major reason why each of them ultimately lost their respective bids for re-election.

At the time, Carter was having trouble building his Presidential Library, and he asked Ford for some advice since Ford had just recently opened his library. When Carter mentioned he was having some issues raising money for the library, Ford offered to come down and appear at fundraisers for him, and asked Carter to return the favor and visit the Ford Library for an event.

As Thomas M. DeFrank writes in his 2007 book, Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations With Gerald R. Ford (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO):

"Carter accepted, triggering a Jimmy-Jerry tag team match extending over several years. These back-scratching appearances didn't convert them into friends, but the relationship was notably friendlier. They began staying in regular contact, talking on the phone, and exchanging birthday greetings. Their contacts were sufficiently public that some of Ford's closest political allies grumbled that he was spending altogether too much time with Carter -- not unlike similar complaints from [George H.W.] Bush 41 partisans today that he hangs around Bill Clinton too much. Ford brushed off the complaints. Beyond their shared practical interests in Presidential Libraries, another unifying bond was at play. Both ex-Presidents had strong reasons not to like Ronald Reagan, which helped cement their ties even though neither one would ever admit it publicly. To one old Ford friend, the calculation was simple: 'Once you did something for his library or museum, you were a friend for life.'"

As they got older, Ford and Carter would sometimes make joint appearances at Presidential Libraries or universities, or events for important causes, and they even wrote a joint op-ed during the Monica Lewinsky scandal urging Congress to censure President Clinton instead of impeaching him. They felt it was a bad precedent (which it has clearly turned out to be) and would be bad for the country. Unlike Ford, Jimmy Carter wasn't very easy-going or personable, so there were times when their friendship would get a little frayed. Ford once told a friend, "Well, you know Jimmy. He can be a real pain in the ass, but we get along."

Eventually, they promised one another that they would deliver the eulogy if the other former President died first. President Ford died first, on December 26, 2006, and Carter attended every event during the several days of ceremonies, from Ford's lying in state at the U.S. Capitol, to the national funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral, and traveled with Ford's family and the former President's remains to Ford's hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. At the church service in Grand Rapids, Carter delivered his eulogy, and also attended the private interment service when Ford was buried as at his Presidential Library. In his eulogy, Carter repeated the gracious first words he had said when delivering his Inaugural Address on the day he took over the White House from Ford in 1977, "For myself and for my nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land." It was a remarkable relationship between two former Presidents who, again, genuinely disliked one another for quite some time.

[389]

Nobody for President was a satirical campaign that emerged during the 1976 United States Presidential election season. The purpose of the campaign was to highlight voter apathy, and to encourage people to register to vote, even if they didn’t necessarily support either major party candidate. It is believed that Wavy Gravy, a peace activist best known as the emcee of Woodstock and as the Grateful Dead’s resident “clown”, initially nominated Nobody for President at a Youth International Party (Yippie) rally which occurred outside of the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City. The Nobody for President movement offered suggestions to counter voter apathy, including providing a None of the Above option on ballots, declaring Election Day a national holiday, and tying election participation to jury duty.

Read more about the history of voting and political buttons on the Busy Beaver blog.

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Ollie Latch - The Young Convert - Education & Publications - 1976

[jhsharman]

humble fumble, ballot boxed

Not sure what "try being popular" even means. I don't think Reggie ever wins these things.

The execution on "Ballot Boxed", where after seeing how everyone is swayed by Jughead's slogan posters for Archie's candidacy Reggie buys him off and you see the rest here, leaves something to be desired. It needs just a mite better slogans than "Archie By Cracky" for me to suspend disbelief and accept. On the soundness of the premise, I am reminded that in voting for asb positions, having nothing else to go by and no clear idea of what the heck I was voting for besides a good line for the candidates' college applications, I voted for whoever have me the most number of campaign stickers.

[lucidpast]

Jimmy Carter campaign poster, 1976. Intended for college campuses.

[evilhorse]

Heck, the only clown I liked in last month’s election was Howard the Duck—an’ even he was a quack!

[rwpohl]

rocky, john g. avildsen 1976

[prokopetz]

You know what just occurred to me?

When the United States switched its copyright duration from the older first-publication formula to the newer life-of-the-author formula, it elected not to make the change retroactive, so there are effectively two copyright regimes in place: one for works published in 1976 and earlier, which use the first-publication formula, and one for works published in 1977 and later, which use the life-of-the-author formula.

This means that, barring any authorship fuckery, The Silmarillion, which was published in 1977, and thus uses the "life of the author plus 70 years" formula, will enter the US public domain in 2044.

However, The Lord of the Rings, which was published in 1954, and thus uses the "date of first publication plus 95 years" formula, will enter the US public domain in... 2050.

In the United States and only in the United States, there will be a period of six years during which The Silmarillion is public domain, but The Lord of the Rings is not.

[tomorrowusa]

50 years ago this month, Richard Nixon resigned as president and Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in to take his place. Nixon was the only president to have resigned but he's not the only one who should have. 😉

Ford was the last truly moderate Republican president. He was a decent and humble man from the Midwest who would be disgusted by the Putin-loving and freedom-hating cult the GOP has become over the past decade.

When he was narrowly defeated by Jimmy Carter in 1976 he graciously conceded and didn't try to instigate extremists to assault the US Capitol.

In the 1980s and 1990s Ford and Carter occasionally appeared together at forums where they both exuded congeniality.

No politician is perfect and Ford is no exception. But the more one learns about the Ford presidency and post-presidency, especially with the past decade's political backdrop, the more there is to respect about him and his devotion to the rule of law.

@fordlibrarymuseum

[mapsontheweb]

1876 US Presidential Election results

[deadpresidents]

If Jerry Brown won the 1976 presidential election, how do you think a Brown Administration would have gone?

Not great. In 1976, Jerry Brown was 38 years old and just one year into his first term as Governor of California. He was not ready to be President in 1976. He was barely ready to be Governor in 1976.

Now, if we're talking about the Jerry Brown of 2012 or 2016 who had mastered just about every aspect of all levels of state and local government in the most populous state of the country, that would have been a different story. With the experience that he had by that point, Governor Brown would have been an awesome President.

[mikkeneko]

On January 30, 1835, US president Andrew Jackson was confronted by Richard Lawrence, who twice attempted to shoot him in the back with a pistol but the gun did not fire. Andrew Jackson proceeded to beat the crap out of Lawrence with his cane. Jackson did not run again in the 1836 election.

On October 14, 1912, former US President and running candidate for the 1912 election Theodore Roosevelt was shot in the chest by John Schrank while on the campaign trail in Milwaukee. He stayed at the podium and delivered the remark "Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Despite the extreme badassery of this line, he lost the 1912 election to Woodrow Wilson.

On May 15, 1972, US presidential candidate George Wallace was shot by a man named Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Maryland. He was injured enough by the attempt that he retired from the 1972 election. He ran for president again in 1976, and did not succeed.

On September 5, 1975, US president Gerald Ford was confronted on the grounds of the Capitol Building by Lynette Fromme, who attempted to shoot him but was not successful; he then went on to be shot at by another woman, Jane Moore, less than two weeks later. Ford campaigned for re-election in the 1976 election, but lost to Jimmy Carter.

While looking up citations for this post I found out about any number of presidential assassination attempts I never even knew about; Wikipedia has an entire category page for them (and another for successful assassinations.) Gerald Ford was shot at twice in two weeks, and Barack Obama at least three times.

Sadly, this type of political violence in the United States is not at all new, not at all uncommon, and the incidence of attempted assassination seems to have no correlation whatsoever as to the individual's success rate in future elections.

[datarep]

U.S. Presidential Election Results as Percentage of Voter-Eligible Population, 1976-2020, including preliminary 2024 results

by ptrdo

[depressed--and--bisexual]

To my non-argentine mutuals:

Long story short we had elections.

Javier Miler, a wannabe trump-bolsonaro hybrid, won.

A negationist of the atrocities commited during the 1976 dictatorship.

A self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist who wants to make us slaves to the US dolar (not that we already kind of are, but he won't try to fix the problem, just replace it and sweep it under the rug).

Someone who wants to deny the right to free healthcare, education and abortion.

Someone who wants to legilaze guns and organ trade (although that one is not a priority, but still).

My heart aches for my country, and even though I am lucky to live outside of it right now, I can't help but think of my family and friends whose life might deteriorate because of it.

The other candidate was shit too, but it was less worse than Milei.

I guess the only thing we can do is wait 4 years and hope that the country won't be further ran into the ground.