Political Experience and Anti-Big Government: The Making and Breaking of Themes in Gerald Ford's 1976 Presidential Campaign

Abstract

The outcome of Gerald Ford's and Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential campaigns rested, as does any American bid for office, on political climate of nation. The public's disillusionment foUowing traumas of Vietnam and Watergate had created a unique mood of cynicism by 1976 that shaped voters' responses to promotional efforts of both parties. As analysis of strategies, speeches, advertising, and pubUc opinion polls reveals, Ford's campaign staff made fundamental miscalculations in developing and pubUcizing his themes of experience in political office and opposition to big government?errors that eventuaUy undercut his candidacy for presidency. Vietnam and Watergate left a legacy of public distrust of government. The American populace felt betrayed by a government that had just lost an increasingly unpopular war for an increasingly dubious cause.1 The claims of US presidents that victory was just around corner rang hoUow after America's humi?ating defeat in 1975, which featured the spectacle of US Marines using rifle butts to keep desperate Vietnamese from blocking escape routes and of angry ARVN [Army of RepubUc of Vietnam] soldiers firing on