August 1974 – February 1975: The Ford presidency begins Following the
Watergate scandal and
resignation of President
Richard Nixon, Vice President Gerald Ford was elevated to the presidency on August 9, 1974. Because Ford had been appointed vice president by Nixon following the resignation of Spiro Agnew from the position, he became the only president to assume office without having been previously elected president or vice president by the
Electoral College. On September 8, Ford's first major act in office was to grant a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes Richard Nixon might have committed against the United States while president. Following his pardon of Nixon, Ford's approval ratings among the American public dropped precipitously. Within a week, his approval rating fell from 69% to 49%, the steepest decline in history. The economy was in dire condition upon Ford's elevation, marked by the worst peacetime inflation in American history and the highest interest rates in a century. The Dow Jones had declined 43 percent from October 1973 to September 1974. To combat inflation, Ford first proposed a tax increase and later, in response to Democratic calls for a permanent cut in taxes, a temporary moderate decrease. Reagan publicly criticized both proposals. Race and education divided public opinion, especially over issues such as forced integration and changes to public school curriculum. Political violence over education policy broke out in
Boston and
Charleston, West Virginia. Abortion also became a nationally salient issue after the Supreme Court's
Roe v. Wade decision, which was handed down the year prior in 1973 and struck down state restrictions on abortion nationwide. In the 1974 midterm elections, the Democratic Party dramatically expanded its majorities in both the
House and
Senate. The elections were seen as a referendum on the Republican Party post-Watergate and on the political establishment more generally. Newly elected members of Congress became known as "
Watergate Babies" and aggressively pursued procedural and oversight reforms. During this period,
Ronald Reagan concluded his second term in office as governor of California. His administration was marked by efforts to dismantle the
welfare state and a high-profile crackdown on urban crime and left-wing dissent, especially at the
University of California, Berkeley. He also led an effort to enforce the state's
capital punishment laws but was blocked by the
California Supreme Court in the
People v. Anderson decision. After Reagan left office in January 1975, he began hosting a national radio show and writing a national newspaper column.
March–July 1975: Conservatives revolt and Reagan rises Conservative opposition to Ford within the Republican Party began to surface in December 1974, following his appointment of New York Governor
Nelson Rockefeller as vice president. For more than a decade, Rockefeller had represented the party's liberal wing, and the appointment faced immediate criticism from right-wing senators
Jesse Helms,
Barry Goldwater and
John Tower, though Rockefeller's confirmation in the Senate was largely undeterred. Discontent reached a fever pitch at the second annual
Conservative Political Action Conference in February. Speaking there, Reagan dismissed calls to seek the presidency on a third-party ticket: "Is it a third party that we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which could make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all the issues troubling the people?" Speakers at CPAC also criticized Ford administration policy, Vice President Rockefeller, and First Lady
Betty Ford's public campaign in support of abortion and the
Equal Rights Amendment. In March, discussion of Reagan's presidential prospects began to grow following an appearance on
The Tonight Show and a profile in
Newsweek that called him "the most kinetic single presence in American political life." In defense, the administration drafted a letter of support for President Ford that received the signatures of 113 of 145 GOP representatives and 31 of 38 senators. Ford formally announced he would run for re-election on July 8. drew criticism from conservative Cold War hawks, including Ronald Reagan More than any domestic issue in 1975, foreign policy drove a wedge between the president and his conservative critics. Following the
American evacuation of Saigon and
the collapse of South Vietnam, these criticisms grew vociferous. On his radio show, Reagan compared the withdrawal from Saigon to the
Munich Agreement and warned that it would "tempt the Soviet Union as it once tempted Hitler and the military rulers of Japan." While Ford regained some support from conservatives following the
rescue of the SS Mayaguez in Cambodia, he soon drew the ire of the party's right wing with a series of foreign policy moves designed to improve relations with the
Soviet Union. First, President Ford refused to meet with Soviet dissident
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on his visit to the United States on June 21. In response, Reagan publicly criticized Ford by name for the first time in his national newspaper column, contrasting the popular Solzhenitsyn to other guests the President had entertained in the White House, "the Strawberry Queen of West Virginia and the Maid of Cotton." The day after this column ran, Senator
Paul Laxalt announced the formation of a committee named "Friends of Ronald Reagan," organized for the purpose of drafting Reagan to run for president. Ford followed the Solzhenitsyn affair with an overseas trip to Eastern Europe, where he signed the
Helsinki Accords, a treaty establishing that the current boundaries of Eastern European nations were "inviolable by force." Conservatives and anti-communists harshly criticized Ford for capitulating to Soviet demands and formally recognizing the Eastern bloc.
The Wall Street Journal called the Helsinki agreement the "new
Yalta." By late August, Ford's approval rating was 34%. On September 5 in Sacramento, Ford survived the
first of two attempts on his life by lone assassins.
A second attempt followed on September 21. Neither assassin struck Ford.
September–December 1975: Reagan enters the race In September, Reagan began to actively campaign in key early states. He stumped in
New Hampshire for Louis Wyman in
the special election for Senate and began to assemble a campaign staff led by campaign manager
John Sears. He secured the endorsement of New Hampshire's conservative governor
Meldrim Thomson Jr. and state party chairman, as well as support from moderate former governor
Hugh Gregg. On November 4, Vice President
Nelson Rockefeller announced he would not seek nomination as Ford's running mate in 1976. That same day, Ford fired Secretary of Defense
James R. Schlesinger, whose critical comments on the Helsinki summit had been leaked to the press earlier in the fall. That week, Ford traveled to Massachusetts and pledged to campaign in every primary in the nation. On November 20, Ronald Reagan officially announced his campaign for president. == Campaign ==