Image and the Gerald Ford Presidency

Scott Kaufman
Scott Kaufman
Francis Marion University

Scott Kaufman is a Board of Trustees Research Scholar and chair of the Department of History at Francis Marion University, where he teaches such classes as โ€œU.S. Military Historyโ€ and โ€œThe Vietnam War.โ€ He is the author, co-author, or editor of twelve books on American military, diplomatic, and presidential history, includingย Project Plowshare: The Peaceful Use of Nuclear Explosives in Cold War America,ย andย Ambition, Pragmatism, and Party: A Political Biography of Gerald R. Ford.

 

 

Overview

July 14, 2022, 4:00 pm

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President Gerald Ford is oftentimes viewed as a caretaker president who entered the Oval Office through an unprecedented series of events, whose only significant act was to pardon Richard Nixon, and who could not win a presidential election in his own right. What contributedโ€”and continues to contributeโ€”to this assessment is image. When Ford fell down the stairs of Air Force One, it gave way to a popular depiction of him as physically unsteady.ย  Furthermore, several of his initiatives and commentsโ€“whether they be the Nixon pardon, the Whip Inflation Now campaign, the โ€œHalloween massacre,โ€ or his gaffe in his second debate with Jimmy Carterโ€“lent credence to the notion that there was a connection between his apparent klutziness and a lack of intelligence. A closer look reveals that such assessments are unfair. Ford had some significant accomplishments, even though he had to contend with a Republican Party and a country in a period of transition.

 

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