“If we had re-elected Ford we could have avoided the disaster of the Carter years and still had Reagan when the time came.”
The Ford wing had no use for Reagan. They certainly would not have endorsed him.
They were rivals in the '76 primary, but if Ford had been re-elected it is my guess he would have served out his term and then turned things over to Reagan in '80 on a reasonably convenient basis. At least he wouldn't have assassinated him, like we see people doing in this election.
Even if he hadn't, the country would have been spared the disaster of the Carter presidency and all of it's fallout we are still suffering today, not the least of which is war in Gulf region. So this "win-by-losing" idiocy is just a bunch of crap.