LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Gerald Ford: Jimmy Carter
built 263 days ago
Ford closed strongly against Carter after trailing by as much as 30 points in the polls but was damaged by asserting during a debate that Poland was not under Soviet domination. Against the advice of aides who told him this was a blunder, Ford stubbornly waited several days before correcting himself. The impression of bumbling was exacerbated by reports of his purported clumsiness. During a trip to Austria, he tripped and fell while leaving Air Force One, and there were several photographs of him falling while skiing.
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In 1976 Ford was challenged by Ronald Reagan in the Republican primaries and barely defeated him for the nomination. The Republican platform... was written by conservatives and repudiated much of the Ford-Kissinger foreign policy of dtente, or relaxation of tensions with the Soviet Union. During the general election campaign, Ford made a major slip in a debate when he asserted that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.†Although he seemed to have meant that the Soviets could not crush the Polish, Hungarian, and Czechoslovak peoples' longing for freedom, his poor choice of words gave the Democrats a chance to argue that Ford simply did not have the brains to be President. Ford was defeated by Jimmy Carter in a close election, receiving slightly less than 49 percent of the vote.
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A decade later... Ford himself would be the target of widespread opposition as his presidency unraveled. Still, the almost insurmountable situation that Ford inherited was not lost on his successor. During his 1977 inaugural address, Jimmy Carter praised Ford, saying: "For myself and for our nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land."
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When he sought election to his office in 1976, Ford snubbed Rockefeller and instead selected Senator Bob Dole as his running mate. During a campaign debate against former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, Ford incorrectly stated that Poland was "independent and autonomous" from the Soviet Union, though at the time the Soviet Union dominated Poland and much of Eastern Europe. When pressed, instead of reconsidering, Ford responded more firmly that "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration". Ford's misstatements were considered a major factor in his loss to Carter, and are cited again every four years as among the worst gaffes made in any televised political debate.
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Ford made a gaffe during a televison debate with Carter when he asserted that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration." Even so, he caught up fast in the latter stages of the campaign, and only narrowly lost on polling day, falling 56 votes short in the electoral college and just two per cent behind in the popular vote.
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In the end, Carter won the election, receiving 50.1% of the popular vote and 297 electoral votes compared with 48.0% and 240 electoral votes for Ford. The election was close enough that had less than 25,000 votes shifted in Ohio and Wisconsin ? both of which neighbored his home state ? Ford would have won the electoral vote.[70] Though he lost, in the three months between the Republican National Convention and the election Ford managed to close what was once a 34-point Carter lead to a 2-point margin. In fact, the Gallup poll the day before the election showed Ford held a statistically insignificant 1-point advantage over Carter.[citation needed]
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