Ford had the momentum at the end and so minus the blown response to the eastern Europe question I believe that he would have crossed the finish line the winner.
Indeed. General agreement between the Carter and Ford campaigns (as well as historians) is that had the election been held 3-4 days later Ford would have won.
Fixing the response to that question accomplishes probably the same result.
As for a Ford Presidency… I dunno. People forget that Carter was pretty conservative on most issues (mostly because he's been quite liberal out of office, and was massively incompetent on most issues in office) so a Ford Presidency could be seen as a successful Carter Presidency.
Carter created the Department of Education, that's probably out. Carter began the military build-up—that's in if Ford can get close to balancing the budget. Ford might raise taxes (he was a pretty standard balance-the-budget Republican, in an era just before voodoo economics took over)—that could trigger the '78 tax revolt earlier or bigger.
Hopefully Ford appoints Volcker to the Fed, otherwise the US is going to be in bigger trouble down the road.
Ford might be able to push through some kind of energy plan—nuclear power? We could butterfly Three Mile Island.
The 1980 elections? Well, Republicans are probably screwed. I can't really see anyone stopping Kennedy if he wants it…*but remember a major reason he ran was simply because he was pissed at how badly Carter was screwing up.
Governor Jerry Brown of California? Perhaps someone from the '76 campaign?