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Online Newshour Interview with Historian Michael Beschloss
Senator Bob Dole joins the Gerald Ford ticket in 1976
LEAH CLAPMAN: In 1976, at the Republican convention, the Republicans nominated Robert Dole as Gerald Ford's vice-president. How did that work, and what did that do for the ticket?
Michael Beschloss discusses:
The origins of the convention process
Memorable platform fights and floor speeches
The historical impact of third parties
June 4, 1979:
The MacNeil/Lehrer Report profiles Senator Bob Dole
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Gerald Ford came to Kansas City having not yet decided who was going to be vice-president. One reason for that was that even at the moment he came to Kansas City, he was not sure that he would win the nomination over Ronald Reagan.
When he did win the nomination over Reagan, it was only by less than 100 votes. The result was that on Wednesday night Ford went with his advisers into a room to decide who would be the vice-president. There was a fairly long list. And they talked about all sorts of people. In the course of this, Ford called Reagan and said, these are some of the names I'm considering; which would be agreeable to you?
Reagan singled out Robert Dole, the Senator from Kansas, as the most conservative name on the list. He said, I think that Dole would be good. That hd a lot of influence on Ford because Ford thought it was very important to get Reagan on the reservation in the fall by choosing a vice-president that Reagan approved of. So Dole in certain ways owed the vice-presidential nomination to Ronald Reagan.
Ford later felt that Dole actually added to the ticket in a couple of other ways. Gerald Ford in 1976 was very unpopular for his central policies. He felt that Bob Dole would help him in some of the farm states. And I saw Ford a number of months ago and talked to him about this.
He says that every vice-presidential nominee has his ups and downs, but Bob Dole, he feels, did help him carry a number of plain states that Ford might not have carried, and Ford does feel that Dole did contribute to the strength of that ticket that year, although Ford and Dole did lose the election.
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