Ford wins in 1976

MrHola

Banned
A lovely POD is the Swine Flu non-epidemic of 1975. Ford, on advice of the CDC, ordered a massive innoculation campaign for a flu epidemic that never arrived. It made him look like a bumbling idiot (which he wasn't) and could have been worth a few hundred thousand votes in a very close election. What if the epidemic actually hit, and Ford was seen as the man who had saved thousands of lives?

Anyways, Ford manages to harvest enough votes because of this POD and narrowly beats Carter in the '76 elections (and perhaps other POD's such an unfortunate blackout in the studio where Ford prematurely liberated Poland). Ford get's inaugerated on 20 January, 1977. Now what?

Ford is going to face all the tough problems of the late 1970s: Iran, oil crisis, stagflation and so on. I assume that a Democrat wins in 1980. How would a second Ford term look like?
 
The Economy is in better shape and the country forces japan to stop selling its steel in the US cheeper then US steel mills could produce it .
 
The easiest POD is simply that Ford doesn't make the "Poland" mistake and thus his rise in the polls is slightly sharper than OTL (it's generally considered that an election a couple days later would have seen Ford become President) and so he wins.

That gives us the minimal butterflies needed to see Ford elected.


As for Ford being President? Obviously the Presidency will run smoother but I can't see him doing wildly better at things than Carter.

Iran probably goes down similarly, although he might mount a less foolish and more robust rescue operation.

He might bring in wage and price controls for a time, with the oil shocks, but I can certainly see the old school Republican "balance the budget" attitude while the Democrats push for a stimulus package.

What matters if the future outcome of the Republican Party. After Nixon the Republican Party came just as unglued as the Democratic Party post-1968. IOTL the supply-siders & neoconservatives took over, convinced Reagan to go along with (he was more libertarian and more conservative than the average Republican, but he wasn't a believer in supply-side economics until the late '70s—more of a very small balanced budget government) and so.

ITTL Ford restores the establishment Republican Party—albeit in a more conservative (but still fairly normal) fashion. Reagan himself is probably prevented from gaining the Presidency as Democrats should surely have the edge in 1980.

In the ATL that could mean a Republican Party that sticks with balanced budgets over huge tax cuts; to be fair Ford being re-elected may do nothing but slow that process a little.

Certainly some more stuff I'm forgetting.

The Economy is in better shape and the country forces japan to stop selling its steel in the US cheeper then US steel mills could produce it .

Not so much. US steel mills were burdened with too many liabilities in the form of pensions and benefits to compete, even if there was a higher tariff on foreign steel. There's a case study about a US steel mill that (essentially) rebooted in 1980 or so—it was able to compete, but it certainly wasn't as generous to the workers as the older steel mills.

Furthermore free trade is always beneficial to a country's economy except under special cases (notably, tariff walls to build industry Japan style). That's simply basic economics.

The problem comes in when you consider real wages, which haven't budged in the US in thirty years. The guy working in the '70s could still support family + car paid off in three years + house w/25 year or less reasonable mortgage + eating better (more imported food / higher quality meat)—the same guy today couldn't possibly meet that without his wife helping, and even then he doesn't hit the same standard.

Ford being elected President is unlikely either to change the spread of free trade, or alter in a good way the real wage problem.

Institutional Memory:
Ford defeats Carter in 1976
Ford Re-elected: No Jimmy Carter
1976 Ford Wins with Baker as VP
Ford Wins
President Ford defeats Jimmy Carter, Ford wins the 1976 election
AH Challenge: Ford defeats Carter
 
The easiest POD is simply that Ford doesn't make the "Poland" mistake and thus his rise in the polls is slightly sharper than OTL (it's generally considered that an election a couple days later would have seen Ford become President) and so he wins.

That gives us the minimal butterflies needed to see Ford elected.


As for Ford being President? Obviously the Presidency will run smoother but I can't see him doing wildly better at things than Carter.

Iran probably goes down similarly, although he might mount a less foolish and more robust rescue operation.

He might bring in wage and price controls for a time, with the oil shocks, but I can certainly see the old school Republican "balance the budget" attitude while the Democrats push for a stimulus package.

What matters if the future outcome of the Republican Party. After Nixon the Republican Party came just as unglued as the Democratic Party post-1968. IOTL the supply-siders & neoconservatives took over, convinced Reagan to go along with (he was more libertarian and more conservative than the average Republican, but he wasn't a believer in supply-side economics until the late '70s—more of a very small balanced budget government) and so.

ITTL Ford restores the establishment Republican Party—albeit in a more conservative (but still fairly normal) fashion. Reagan himself is probably prevented from gaining the Presidency as Democrats should surely have the edge in 1980.

In the ATL that could mean a Republican Party that sticks with balanced budgets over huge tax cuts; to be fair Ford being re-elected may do nothing but slow that process a little.

Certainly some more stuff I'm forgetting.



Not so much. US steel mills were burdened with too many liabilities in the form of pensions and benefits to compete, even if there was a higher tariff on foreign steel. There's a case study about a US steel mill that (essentially) rebooted in 1980 or so—it was able to compete, but it certainly wasn't as generous to the workers as the older steel mills.

Furthermore free trade is always beneficial to a country's economy except under special cases (notably, tariff walls to build industry Japan style). That's simply basic economics.

The problem comes in when you consider real wages, which haven't budged in the US in thirty years. The guy working in the '70s could still support family + car paid off in three years + house w/25 year or less reasonable mortgage + eating better (more imported food / higher quality meat)—the same guy today couldn't possibly meet that without his wife helping, and even then he doesn't hit the same standard.

Ford being elected President is unlikely either to change the spread of free trade, or alter in a good way the real wage problem.

Institutional Memory:
Ford defeats Carter in 1976
Ford Re-elected: No Jimmy Carter
1976 Ford Wins with Baker as VP
Ford Wins
President Ford defeats Jimmy Carter, Ford wins the 1976 election
AH Challenge: Ford defeats Carter


Would have to agree with much of this. On the point of economics it raises an interesting point, in that IMHO in 1976 the American public probably wasn't ready for any strict form of supply-side economics yet, as has already been basically stated.

I wonder if US politics would then resemble more like what occurred in Australia and New Zealand OTL. In both nations right-wing govts were elected in the mid-1970's and they very hesitantly started the process of de-regulation and neo-liberals reforms but with many many U-Turns, etc. It wasn't until the mid-80's with the election of left wing govts that this occured in earnest. I wonder in this ATL USA whether the turn towards supply-side economics might only be adopted under a Democratic Administration in 1984? Perhaps an earlier Third Way Clinton-esque set of policies?
 
Maybe if Ford was re-elected in 1976, economic condition of US will the same with Carter in OTL and Democrats will win for 1980.

The key difference is that the Ford administration will be competent, the Carter administration was not.

I do think the Democrats win in the ATL in 1980, but the perception of Ford (and hence establishment Republicanism) remains solid, recovering from Nixon's damage.


Would have to agree with much of this. On the point of economics it raises an interesting point, in that IMHO in 1976 the American public probably wasn't ready for any strict form of supply-side economics yet, as has already been basically stated.

I wonder if US politics would then resemble more like what occurred in Australia and New Zealand OTL. In both nations right-wing govts were elected in the mid-1970's and they very hesitantly started the process of de-regulation and neo-liberals reforms but with many many U-Turns, etc. It wasn't until the mid-80's with the election of left wing govts that this occured in earnest. I wonder in this ATL USA whether the turn towards supply-side economics might only be adopted under a Democratic Administration in 1984? Perhaps an earlier Third Way Clinton-esque set of policies?

Well there's a difference between neoliberal and supply-side. Supply-side is based on nothing. There's not a real economist in the world that would tell you supply-side "economics" works.

Supply-side is the assumption that large tax cuts to the wealthier members of society will result in higher tax revenue. This is not particularly true. What is true is that high marginal rates do effect the economy. 90% or 70% is clearly too high and cutting them in half makes for sound economic policy, but going from 40% to 30% produces little benefit—it's basic diminishing returns. Clinton raised the top marginal rate from 28% to 31% and despite widespread predictions by the Republicans the US economy grew and tax revenue climbed (conveniently supply-siders suffer from a form of short-term memory loss).

Supply-siders also adopted (in the US) from the Democrats the idea that deficits don't matter. Finally suppy-siders adopted the idea that massive deficits would compel program cuts—obviously (hi Bush 43) this was not the case.


Neoliberal economics is basically an American term meaning classical liberal (because American liberal = social democrat) which is small government, markets, economic freedom, etc…. Unlike supply-siders they don't believe in magic tax cuts to the rich (although they do believe in lower marginal rates and flat taxes) and they also have no particular desire to run deficits (although they often did).



As for the Democrats, it's certainly possible that they take up the cause of neoliberalism although this would depend on the Democrat elected. After all one can use the market to deliver social welfare (negative income tax), and the Democrats want to help people—if smaller government but perhaps more income redistribution is the way to go they could adopt that.

Off the top of my head Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the only high-profile Democrat talking about neoliberalism in the time period and (as a bonus) he supported Nixon's negative income tax (or, as Democrats call it, the guaranteed annual income). On social issues he's to the left (though he voted in favour of the partial birth abortion ban), on economic issues it varies, and though he started quite anti-Communist he mellowed out as the decade went on.

He also made, in retrospect, the right call on the black issue:

In 1965 his office issued The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, commonly known as the Moynihan Report. Its conclusion that African-American urban poverty could be traced in part to a breakdown of family structure was at the time much criticized by civil-rights activists but is now generally regarded as an unusually prescient analysis.
 
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