Gerald Ford is the only president never elected by the American public.  President Richard Nixon appointed  Ford Vice President upon the resignation of Spiro Agnew.  Ford had been extremely successful and well liked as a representative in Congress where he had been the Minority Leader of the House and his personal integrity and reputation were unimpeachable.  Gerald Ford ascended to the presidency on August 9, 1974 with the resignation of Richard Nixon because of Watergate scandal.  Then about a month later, Ford unconditionally pardoned Nixon, a move he made on a late Sunday afternoon, which allowed little direct press coverage.  However, the public disapproved by a 2 to 1 margin of a move.  For two years, Ford had handled the presidency-by-succession with a great degree of competence and without major scandals.
      Ford divorced his administration from that of Nixon by stressing integrity to gain the trust of the people in the government.  Some of the issues that concerned the American public were starting to ease with the falling of South Vietnam ending this undeclared war, and inflation decreasing by work Ford was doing with his veto power.  Ford looked forward to running on his own record with great gusto.  He was in an awkward position because he had never run for a national office and had no national constituency.  This was an important issue for many Republicans because the party heads were split with loyalties to Ronald Reagan.  Reagan had raised quite a lot of money for the party and candidates, so he was looked upon as the leader of the party.  The nomination did end up going to Ford, who narrowly defeated Reagan.  He then selected Senator Robert Dole as the vice presidential candidate because Nelson Rockefeller stated he did not want to continue in the position.
     In what became known as the "Rose Garden" strategy, the Ford campaign focused on keeping him in the White House doing presidential tasks with press coverage in the Rose Garden, instead of having him traveling from state to state.  The campaign of Ford declared: “For the next four years I pledge to you that I will hold to the steady course we begun.”  He felt that his record was one of progress, specifics, and performance.  Ford felt proud to run on his record.  The campaign also ran ads that showed Ford as a good and honest family man.  The keys for the Ford campaign were strengthening his human dimension, leadership ability, compassion for less fortunate Americans, accomplishments in office, and his programs for the future.  It was the second of the three televised debates that truly hurt Ford, who for days afterwards was trying to explain what he meant in the debate.  In the end, it was a very close race with Carter winning by only 56 electoral votes.

Ford Sworn In	The Nixon Pardon	Assassination Attempt
Dealing With The Press	Ford Arrives In New Hampshire	1976 Ticket