1976: Reagan vs. Carter

Your Vote for U.S. President, 1976

  • Ronald Reagan and Howard Baker (R)

    Votes: 47 45.2%
  • Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale (D)

    Votes: 53 51.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 4 3.8%

  • Total voters
    104
  • Poll closed .
You decide, America:

Two term California Governor Ronald Reagan and the senior Senator from Tennessee, Howard Baker, the man who probably sealed the nomination for Reagan over Ford at the convention after it leaked that Reagan/Baker was a done deal, running on the GOP side.

OR...

One term Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter and the senior Senator from Minnesota, Walter Mondale.

Have to admit, I've been solidly in Reagan's camp since his speech at the convention in 1964. (I wished it was him, rather than Goldwater, running against Johnson, but I took what I could get...)

The time is now!

Reagan/Baker '76!
 
Reagan/Baker '76: The economy will still suck, the Iran crisis will still not be resolved, and Disco will still exist...but damn he's pretty.
 
Voted for Carter in the poll. Might consider Reagan if only it means that he will be destroyed by Ted Kennedy in 1980.
 
How on earth anyone could vote for that micromanaging, means-well-ineptly Georgian is beyond me. In OTL, only Wilson could challenge him for moralizing from the Oval Office.
 
How on earth anyone could vote for that micromanaging, means-well-ineptly Georgian is beyond me. In OTL, only Wilson could challenge him for moralizing from the Oval Office.

Because he doesn't want to enact policies that will bankrupt the country and destroy the middle class?
 
I voted for Reagan, so he'll crash and burn, discrediting his ultraconservatism for another generation or two.
 

loughery111

Banned
Because he doesn't want to enact policies that will bankrupt the country and destroy the middle class?

I'm sorry, but the tagline below your name pretty much means we can assume you're not reasonable about this.

Mind you, I'm not the hugest fan of Reagan's domestic policies either, but it's hard to top Carter for sheer idiocy in the Oval Office. Ideal for me would be H.W. running in '80 and trouncing Carter, but I'll take what I can get, and OTL history turned out well enough except for the two we had to choose between in 2000.
 
I'm sorry, but the tagline below your name pretty much means we can assume you're not reasonable about this.

Mind you, I'm not the hugest fan of Reagan's domestic policies either, but it's hard to top Carter for sheer idiocy in the Oval Office. Ideal for me would be H.W. running in '80 and trouncing Carter, but I'll take what I can get, and OTL history turned out well enough except for the two we had to choose between in 2000.

Yes, because being a liberal automatically disqualifies you from making negative comments about St. Ronnie. :rolleyes:

I'm no conservative, but were I, I'd not be a big fan of Ronald "Make the national debt hit a trillion dollars for the first time in American history" Reagan.
 

loughery111

Banned
Yes, because being a liberal automatically disqualifies you from making negative comments about St. Ronnie. :rolleyes:

I'm no conservative, but were I, I'd not be a big fan of Ronald "Make the national debt hit a trillion dollars for the first time in American history" Reagan.

I never said it prevents you from making them but it certainly requires me to take them with a grain of salt. In case you hadn't noticed, I applied a little more moderate criticism, but criticism nonetheless, to his domestic policies myself. I'm a moderate, not a Palinista. It's his foreign policy that I've always been quite partial to, and his value as an orator in restoring some faith and trust to the American people.
 
Carter - I can't trust Reagan (particularly not 1976 Reagan) on foreign policy, whereas I can trust Carter to continue détenté (if also infusing it with moral criticism as appropriate).
 
Care to be specific about how much practical effect moralizing from the Oval Office has had? You can see for yourself how much good it did Wilson in his time, and Carter couldn't carry Wilson's intellectual briefcase.

Yeah, that'll make for a really effective presidency: a steady diet of tiresome, overly earnest preaching and moralizing from the Oval Office promulgated by a man out of his depth but too arrogant to admit it. Sounds to me like a sure-fire recipe for failure.

Reagan was no saint but he was a damn sight better than Carter, IMO. But then again, nobody has really measured up to Theodore Roosevelt in the last century in my eyes.
 
Sure I can. Cutting US support to the junta in Argentina, or to Pinochet, or to other nasty dictatorships, was a good thing, and improved our image in Latin America and elsewhere. Criticizing the Soviet Union's human rights record was a good thing, and made détenté more palatable to domestic audiences (by showing that we were still perfectly capable of criticizing them); further, it helped encourage the dissidents whose efforts helped lead to the fall of the Soviet Union. The boycott of the Moscow Olympics was a good way of showing American disapproval of Soviet action in Afghanistan.

Reagan's first term was reasonably good on domestic policy, and his second term was reasonably good on foreign policy. But that's because he ended up more moderated by 1980. Electing him in 1976 would not have been good - I don't want a President who would've supported the authoritarian South American dictatorships, ended détenté, and gotten into endless budget fights with Congress.
 

loughery111

Banned
Sure I can. Cutting US support to the junta in Argentina, or to Pinochet, or to other nasty dictatorships, was a good thing, and improved our image in Latin America and elsewhere. Criticizing the Soviet Union's human rights record was a good thing, and made détenté more palatable to domestic audiences (by showing that we were still perfectly capable of criticizing them); further, it helped encourage the dissidents whose efforts helped lead to the fall of the Soviet Union. The boycott of the Moscow Olympics was a good way of showing American disapproval of Soviet action in Afghanistan.

Reagan's first term was reasonably good on domestic policy, and his second term was reasonably good on foreign policy. But that's because he ended up more moderated by 1980. Electing him in 1976 would not have been good - I don't want a President who would've supported the authoritarian South American dictatorships, ended détenté, and gotten into endless budget fights with Congress.

I'm none too keen on the idea either but any opportunity to get rid of Carter should be seized and clung too like a life preserver in the North Atlantic. He and Wilson are tied for first place in my "if I could butterfly away this presidency" list. Above even the 19th century no-namers.
 
Top