Was Gerald Ford's 1976 performance in the general election actually impressive?

[Alben Barkley]

Very much so considering where he started. Good chance he would have won if the race went on a little longer. The same is true for Humphrey in 1968 by the way.

[Alben Barkley]

Very much so considering where he started. Good chance he would have won if the race went on a little longer. The same is true for Humphrey in 1968 by the way.

Agreed. Or if Johnson just leaked information that Nixon was sabotaging the peace talks. Something that was actually worse than Watergate.

That was partly Humphrey's fault. He advised Johnson not to release it, thinking he already had the election in the bag by that point. He would later admit it was his biggest regret.

[Alben Barkley]

He kept California which is surprising. He did well in Michigan too. It was close which is impressive considering the damage to the GOP that Nixon caused.

Perhaps Ford being almost shot by two California women twice within a month while campaigning there helped him out lol

One of the more bizarre sequence of events in US history.

[Alben Barkley]

Very much so considering where he started. Good chance he would have won if the race went on a little longer. The same is true for Humphrey in 1968 by the way.

Agreed. Or if Johnson just leaked information that Nixon was sabotaging the peace talks. Something that was actually worse than Watergate.

That was partly Humphrey's fault. He advised Johnson not to release it, thinking he already had the election in the bag by that point. He would later admit it was his biggest regret.

From what I read about the Humphrey campaign was that they were never confident they would win and viewed it as a somewhat uphill battle right until the end.  They were behind in polling in Texas and Pennsylvania the whole time, which they ended up winning.

My source:

Johnson did make information available to Humphrey, but at this point Humphrey thought he was going to win the election, so he did not reveal the information to the public. Humphrey later regretted this as a mistake.

[Alben Barkley]

He kept California which is surprising. He did well in Michigan too. It was close which is impressive considering the damage to the GOP that Nixon caused.

No it isn't. Carter was a garbage choice for California.

McGovern sent that state very far left of the nation, but since he got trashed and didn't pull a Goldwater sort of loss to it [a pity it wasn't Montana, South Dakota, or Oregon that was the odd one], no one seemed to care.

But Dems decided to chase an antiquated and fading base rather than build to the future, because the math was still there for The South, and The Midwest was too shaky. Fair enough, but not helpful come 1980.

Yeah, I'm sure if a Northern Democrat had won in 1976, the 1980 slaughter could totally have been avoided!

LMFAO.

Unless you're implying the best course would have been to deliberately lose in 1976? Crazy 3D chess, 20/20 hindsight kind of s--t.

[Alben Barkley]

Let's not forget to that LBJ could've landed himself in hotwater leaking the info about Nixon sabotaging the peace talks due to the fact that how LBJ obtained the info was illegal wire taps. Granted, he wouldn't have gotten in nearly as much trouble as Nixon, but still that might've played a role in it.

Not if it was an anonymous leak to the major newspapers. He likely would have been dead by the time he was implicated in it.

On top of this, LBJ made the info freely available to Humphrey and ultimately made it his choice what to do with it or not. That tells me that implicating himself probably was not a top concern of his. We're talking about f--king LBJ here. This was a "win at all costs" man if ever there was one. I don't doubt he would have leaked the tapes himself, and let the press speculate as to how they were acquired all they want, had he been running. But he let Humphrey make the call, which is why Humphrey ultimately took the blame.