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

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Very much so. The headwinds were against a Republican victory that year. Watergate created a huge "mood for change" factor, and Ford got his share of backlash for pardoning Nixon (although it probably was the smarter move politically - moral victory be damned, getting Nixon out of the public eye and avoiding a prolonged legal battle definitely helped the GOP, and it kept the party united).

Beyond that, America was not in a particularly good place. The economy did bounce back in 1976 and that helped Ford, but the state of the American economy was still pretty weak compared to the 50s and 60s. Nixon had been elected on a law and order platform, but crime was getting worse. The crown jewel of the American empire, New York City, was bankrupt and needed a bailout - this reflected poorly on the state of the American economy, and spending billions of taxpayer dollars bailing out a Democrat-run city wasn't exactly a crowd pleaser among Ford's Republican base. The Vietnam War had ended in humiliation, and the Cold War was in detente, so hawkish anti-Communism wasn't going to rally as many voters.

Democrats basically nominated the perfect guy that year. Southern Democrats had all but abandoned Humphrey and McGovern, but Carter was able to win that base back, taking a huge bite right out of the GOP's Southern Strategy. He was an evangelical with broadly centrist views on social policy, so not exactly "Acid, Amnesty and Abortion". His biography was perfect for a Democratic challenger that year - an outsider from the South (but not a segregationist) who was going to clean up Washington, exactly what voters wanted that year. The Playboy interview hurt him, but overall, everything was in Carter's favor.

So the fact that Ford - an uncharismatic, unpopular president who was never elected to the office and had the baggage of his predecessor - was still able to keep the election that close is pretty impressive. I think it reflects the strength of the Republican Party at the time.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

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.

Well tbf, California was a pretty red state during the Cold War era. Not unwinnable by any means, but also not the California we know today, it was a fairly Republican-leaning state. It hadn't really even shown any signs of trending left yet, the suburbs were the fastest-growing part, and 1970s California suburbanites were a pretty right-wing set.

It's true that the South was fading away from the Democrats, and maybe Democrats were in denial about it. Yet at the same time, during the time between the passing of the Civil Rights Act and the end of the Cold War, there simply weren't enough Democrats elsewhere to replace Southern support. Humphrey and McGovern before Carter, and Mondale and Dukakis afterwards, had little appeal to Dixiecrats, and the rest of the country wasn't particularly liberal either.