Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan

I've been wanting to post blogs here at Daily Kos for some time.  I blog elsewhere before I set myself up here at KOS, but never really put anything here.

I've gotten more confident in my writting though, and feel I should try to post here in the big leagues too.  If anything I'll get more feedback and have more to think about.  Yeah, that's what I need: more to read and to write.

This diary entry, as they're called here, is probably not the best way to start; but today is when I'm starting so this is what I'm starting with.  This blog may not seem like it was written by a part-time peace activist, green-party supporter, Kucinich supporter, or a any other kind of lefty activist.  I'm OK with that.

I figured I'd blog about the first presidential election I really remember, and the loser of that election Gerald Ford.  After all he did just die, and even though he isn't "one of us", the Republicans really got a lot uglier after him than they ever were before him-- not counting Nixon.

You may have to click on the "There's more" thing below

I remember Gerald Ford as president, I remember Nixon for that matter too. But I was pretty young so all I remember from Ford was "WIN" buttons meaning "Whip Inflation Now", which I don't know how those buttons were going to whip inflation now. My family are Republicans. My mother has always been a county committee woman, and organizer in the local republican party. I even wrote a lot of campaign literature for local elections when I was in middle school.

I don't remember Ford's presidency very much, but I remember the Ford Reagan primaries. There was a real fear, maybe more real to a sixth greader but still there, that Reagan was a lunatic that would plunge the country into nuclear war with the Soviets if he won. That was back when people called it nuclear and not "Nuke-U-ler he-he-he".

What the pundits are saying is that Ford's subsequent defeat to Carter turned out to be the end of the "moderate" Republican-- the fiscal conservative, socially libertarian, blue blood wing-- allowing the "social conservatives" to take over. What surprised me was something some "presidential historian" said tonight on Lou Dobbs show on CNN (Lou being home tonight). She said that Ford's defeat was because the social conservatives, Reagan's wing of the party, stayed home on election day.

Looking at an election map from 1976 shows the south, from Texas to Virginia all going to Carter, probably the last time a Democrat pulled that off. I would have thought it was because he was from Georgia himself, but according this historian she said republican turn out was low that year in places were Reagan was strong. By staying home, they set up the take over of the party the next time out and reshaped for the worse the political landscape in our country since then.

People voted for Reagan because they thought he'd kick Iran's ass. He didn't. If anything, with all the evidence that points the Reagan-Bush October surprise they exasperated it for political gain. Exasperating problems for political gain seems to be the modus operandi of the Republicans since Ford. Our country suffers for it.