Posted on 10/06/2026 2:29:24 PM PDT by cowboyusa
I was -1. I wonder what it was like to see live. It likely cost him the Election and led to President Reagan.
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I was a teenager but not really focused on politics. This always struck me as a mildly stupid thing to say, but no big deal.
The media, however, successfully managed to turn it into a totally disqualifying remark. The stupidest thing any human had ever said. They were all over it.
For anyone of Polish heritage it was deal breaker.
I was in radar school at Great Lakes Ill. For the US Navy. I think that was a major factor in Jimmy Carters win for the presidency.
That was just before my time. What was the exact gaffe?
Some people think he lost because of the pardon, and more broadly it being the first post-Watergate POTUS election.
Ford was a brilliant man—a forensic pathologist who knew enough to move the “magic bullet” location with his own pen in the draft version of the Warren Commission report.
Lol.
“I think that was a major factor in Jimmy Carters win for the presidency.”
*******************************************************
I agree. During the debate I kept waiting for him to correct himself… but he never did. Mental block I suppose.
Ford lost because
He replaced Nixon
The totally botched Swine Flu virus program - more died from the shot than from swine flu. Sound familiar?
The mass media had **attacked** Ford 7x24x365 - just like Trump.
not to mention Ford was a chump.
As far as the disaster of little Jimmy Carter... He was handed a hot mess. Jimmy made it far worse. Panama... I won’t list all the other messes he made...
CArter was a bigger chump. IMO.
CArter was a bigger chump. IMO.
In hindsight, yes. And if it look Ford losing to give us Reagan, it was worth it.
Stated in the title
I’m just guessing here. But maybe Ford was trying to say that the *hearts* of the people of Eastern Europe haven’t been dominated. They still yearn for freedom.
And if so, he was actually right. The Solidarity movement proved it a decade later.
I also couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Ford make that gaffe. The next day, I was at the University of Southern California when Ford made a campaign appearance. Addressing the crowd from the steps of the Doheny Library, Ford was accompanied by Olympic swimmer John Nabor and USC Trojan tailback Ricky Bell. He began his speech by “clarifying” his remarks at the debate, and said that what he really meant was that he did not accept Soviet domination of Eastern Europe—and I was thinking, “yeah, right!” Nonetheless, I voted for him in the election, even though I was a fanatic Reaganaut.
Today, there is a plaque at the site of where Ford delivered his speech.
I saw it live and while it was jarring I didn’t take it seriously, it was obviously a meaningless gaffe, an onstage brain fart that WWII Lt. Commander Ford made.
It was an election where the GOP didn’t stand much of a chance, The crooked veep Agnew had resigned, the president had resigned, but not before appointing the guy who would pardon him.
The media was portraying Carter who was out of high school in December of 1941 and who managed to avoid WWII by going to Georgia Tech and then switching colleges to the Naval Academy with a graduation date of 1947 as a bigtime military man and a devoted and ultra conservative Southern Baptist Christian (a denomination he left after he finished running for office) people thought he was pro-life and conservative and would bring his military toughness to foreign affairs with Russia, it was all media imagery.
Oh. Gerald Ford, not Henry Ford.
Took me a minute. ;)
Henry Ford benefited greatly during and after WWII supporting our Soviet allies and with the Marshall Plan. Helping create the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.
Gerald Ford fared more poorly describing the Soviet sphere of influence.
[snicker]
When I think of Jimmy Carter, I think of gas rationing/hours-long lines, 18% mortgages, surrender in Iran, giving away the Panama Canal, “wear a sweater”, and him being attacked by a killer bunny while canoeing.
I was too young to vote for Reagan the first time, but certainly did the second.
Just a few....
Henry Ford wrote an anti-semitic book that inspired Hitler.
He was a lifelong Republican, but for the first and only time voted Democratic (for Carter) because of that one remark.
That was definitely a factor, but another major, if not decisive factor, was the bitter divide in the GOP between the Reagan and Ford factions of the party. As Professor William Van Cleave of the University of Southern California noted, the divide was as wide as the Mississippi River.
I wound up voting for Ford, but many hard-core Reagan supporters decided to "go fishing" on Election Day.
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