Fifty years ago today, Ronald Reagan gave one of the most important speeches of his life. While speaking to the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, Reagan asked a powerful question: What would people of the future think if they opened a time capsule in 100 years? Would they believe Americans had met the challenges of the moment?
Reagan’s speech came at the culmination of a close-fought campaign against incumbent president Gerald Ford for the GOP nomination. Ford, a long-serving Michigan congressman, had stepped in to become vice president in 1973 after Spiro Agnew had to resign because of a bribery scandal dating back to his time as governor of Maryland. Ford then ascended to the presidency when Richard Nixon himself resigned the next year due to the Watergate scandal. This meant that while Ford was the incumbent, Reagan—who had been governor of California and had unsuccessfully run for the GOP presidential nomination against Nixon in 1968—felt that he, not Ford, was the next in line.
Ford defeated Reagan in the New Hampshire primary and then ran off a string of victories to build a big early lead. But Reagan fought back with a victory in North Carolina and picked up the momentum. Going into the August convention, the candidates were neck and neck; Ford had a slight lead in delegates but not the necessary majority. The 1976 convention would be the last Republican convention with the contest undecided going in.
Given the power of incumbency, the Reagan people knew they had to shake up the race in order to stave off defeat in Kansas City. Unfortunately for Reagan, the strategy they came up with, pre-selecting Pennsylvania senator Richard Schweiker as his running mate, failed. The liberal Republican alienated Reagan’s conservative base and helped Ford over the top. Ford won the nomination on the first ballot by a margin of just 117 votes—1,187 to 1,070.
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