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The Candidate Who Almost Wasn’t
By Peter B. Fletcher
Presidential election
year are favorite times for remembering prior campaigns and 2004 should be
no exception. One national election had a heavy Michigan flavor.
Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids had become president of the
United States through circumstances known to all, but less well known is
one key element in his bid for election in 1976.
Since President Ford had
not come to our highest office via the usual election route, the former
governor of California, Ronald Reagan, seriously challenged him. The two
had been slugging it out in a series of close primary election encounters
in the spring of 1976. Governor Reagan decided early to enter the Michigan
primary, scheduled for the third week of May, even though it was the
incumbent president’s home state. Michigan election law provided that the
secretary of state contact each potential candidate and ask that an
affidavit of candidacy be filed by the third Friday of March at 4:00 P.M.
in order to be listed on the Michigan primary ballot. Failure to file such
a document would keep a candidate off the ballot.
As chairman of Ford’s
election campaign in Michigan, I received a copy of this letter from
Secretary of State Richard Austin that listed all potential
candidates—Democrats and Republicans. A cursory reading gave the
impression that President Ford would automatically be listed on the
ballot. However, I called the secretary of state’s office the week before
the deadline to ask if it had received the affidavit of candidacy for
President Ford. When the answer was “no,” I asked if one was needed for
the president to appear on the Michigan primary ballot. The answer was
“yes.”
With less than five days
to go before the filing deadline, I called the Washington campaign office
Monday morning to alert it to the Michigan problems. Staff there told me I
was wrong. But instinct and experience spurred me on and I asked them to
double check with their legal staff to satisfy the whim of a mere campaign
worker in Michigan. About two hours later I received a far different call,
this one filled with panic. They had discovered that the president had to
file.
Another call Tuesday
morning told me that after the president signed the affidavit that morning
it would be addressed to me and put on a Washington-to-Detroit flight
scheduled to arrive at 7:00 P.M. I arrived at the proper time and asked
for the special envelope. The envelope was missing. This request must have
produced one of the most frantic searches in the airport’s history.
Workers tore the plane apart, wandered up and down the runway, scoured the
baggage areas and finally called the airline president at home. Five hours
later, they admitted the envelope could not be found.
Wednesday morning, with
less than three days to go before the filing deadline, I called Washington
to report the bad news. Campaign staff then revealed one smart move: they
had asked the president to sign two affidavits. They would send me the
second one by the same airline and I would report to a specific person at
Metro Airport.
At the given time, I
made my way though the maze of back offices and found the man who was to
give me the long-awaited envelope. The man sat behind a pile of papers at
a modest desk. When he learned of my mission, he casually remarked, “I
think I have it here someplace.” He pushed and poked the disorganized pile
for a few moments while I wondered if all great dramas in history are made
of such stuff. Then he quietly asked, “Is this it?” and handed me the
vital envelope. I thanked him, left for Lansing, and gave the envelope to
Governor William G. Milliken. With less than one day to spare, the
governor walked to the secretary of state’s office to make the appropriate
filing on behalf of President Ford.
The president went on to
win a much-needed victory in the Michigan primary; giving him fifty-nine
delegates in a contest he was to win that July by just fifty votes. Had
his name not been on the Michigan ballot, no such victory in him home
state would have been possible and the outcome could have been different
at the national convention.
The
Spirit of ‘76
By Rick Liblong
“Here he comes!” someone
shouted. The large crowd and I began to stir on this cool, wet May 15,
1976. The assembled high school bank broke into “The Victors,” the
University of Michigan fight song, for Gerald R. Ford, Michigan’s native
son. The big Amtrak train rolled into the Durand station. As the last car
came into view, the President and Mrs. Ford waved to the crowd from the
rear platform adored with the presidential seal.
Even though the weather
was lousy, there was excitement in the air. Fathers held their children on
their shoulders to see Michigan’s only president. Signs were everywhere,
some proclaiming, “Betty’s Husband for President!”
The President and Mrs.
Ford came down from the train to work the rope line and shake hands as
they could. After about twenty minutes, they reboarded the train and
addressed the throng.
President Ford said,
“Those who have known me in Michigan in the twenty-seven years that I have
been honored to serve the people of this state [know] that I did the very
best job that I possibly could.”
At the conclusion of his
short remarks, the Fords walked from side to side on the rear of the car,
waving. The President looked like a slow metronome as his arm and hand
rhythmically moved back and forth. Once, as he came to my side of the car,
he went to lean out and wave to the people around the side of the car and
he bumped his head on the overhead handrail! Poor Jerry Ford, the most
athletic of our presidents, had a knack for stumbling. Comedian Chevy
Chase made a living on Saturday Night Live mocking Ford’s mishaps.
These articles first
appeared in the September/October 2004 issue of Michigan History.
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