Reply #23: Another lifelong dem disagrees [View All]

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"Gerald Ford's voting record during his 25 years in the House was conservative and generally internationalist, and it reflected almost unswerving loyalty to the Republican party and to Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon. Ford fought against expansion of the role of the national government. He consistently opposed federal aid to education, including funds for school construction, emergency school aid, and increased appropriations for higher education.

In the field of agriculture Ford voted for flexible price supports and against emergency loans. In other domestic areas he voted for greater curbs on labor union practices and for more restrictive increases in the minimum wage.

Ford's record on civil rights was mixed, although he generally sought to restrict the federal government's role in the protection of civil rights. His record on final passage was generally positive, but he was criticized by civil rights groups for attempting to weaken bills through amendments before passage. He voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, he endorsed subsequent efforts by the Nixon administration to weaken the Voting Rights Act."
http://ap.grolier.com/article?assetid=0161740-00

"Serious questions have been raised about Ford's denial of a "deal" or "understanding." There is no doubt about the attention given to the pardon option both before and after Nixon's resignation, with Alexander Haig in charge of the arrangements. Ford was a central figure in helping to derail the inquiry by Congressman Wright Patman into the connection between the money found on the Watergate burglars and the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CREEP).

"Nixon had Ford totally under his thumb," Alexander P. Butterfield, a former Nixon White House appointments secretary, told Seymour Hersh. But Ford held out before he would deliver: he wanted, as Hersh reports, "some concessions from Nixon on the relocation of his papers and tape recordings." Some White House aides also pressed for an act of contrition from Nixon as a prerequisite to a pardon. Hersh also reported that Nixon, impatient and concerned that the understanding would collapse, telephoned Ford on the night of 7 September to warn that he would make public a claim that he had been promised the pardon in exchange for relinquishing the presidency. The new president made his announcement the following morning. The arrangement also involved giving Nixon custody of the papers and tapes, which would be housed in a government storage facility near San Clemente, California.

Ford's veto of a veterans' education bill was easily overridden. Despite another veto threat, Congress passed a bill regulating strip-mining, which Ford managed to pocket veto; the Congress had no opportunity to undo the president's action. Before the second session of the Ninety-third Congress came to an end, Ford had suffered more setbacks on Capitol Hill than any president since Harry Truman (with whom Ford liked to compare himself). In his first three months, he vetoed more bills than had Nixon in eighteen. Furthermore, according to the Congressional Quarterly, Ford won only 58.2 percent of the congressional votes on which he took a position, the lowest level of support for any first-year president since that publication had begun keeping records twenty-two years earlier.

the president vetoed seventeen bills. The Congress, despite the numerical advantage, was able to override only four. Underlining the philosophical differences between Ford and the Democrats, the overturned vetoes included such social welfare measures as health care funds, appropriations for education, and money for school lunches. The country had neither strong presidential leadership nor viable "Congressional government," which had been the hope of Democrats on Capitol Hill. Speaker Carl Albert finally conceded that Congress would be unable to enact "programs and policies that will return us to full employment, economic prosperity and durable social peace and progress."

What had begun with so much hope after Nixon's resignation yielded to frustration and hard times. Monthly unemployment figures continued to climb, reaching a peak of 9.2 percent by May. The twin forces of inflation and layoffs among such a large portion of the work force added up to the most discouraging figures for the economy since World War II.

Inflation, unemployment, the Nixon pardon, and Watergate all swayed voters. Blacks voted heavily for Carter, giving the Democrat 94 percent of their vote, and he also won over the bulk of those primarily troubled by unemployment."
http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Kennedy-Bush/Ford-Gerald-R.html

"Though Ford was cursed with the stain of Watergate, that did not totally sink his presidential bid. His caution and timidness on civil rights and social issues also contributed mightily to his being anything more than an accidental president. In fact, three decades after his loss, an exhaustive search for his presidential record on civil rights turns up this, "no stance on civil rights."
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/46034/

"Gay rights were not a big national issue in the 1976 presidential race he lost to Jimmy Carter. Neither party's platform made reference to gay issues, though it was the last time a Republican platform supported the Equal Rights Amendment and the first occasion on which it endorsed a constitutional amendment against abortion."
http://gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17644575&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568857&rfi=6