Gerald R. Quotes
Remarking on his own appointment as President:
Gerald Ford, who had never run nationally for office, succeeded to the presidency upon the resignation of Richard Nixon. While generally competent and extremely gracious, in the wake of Watergate he lost his only presidential election contest to Jimmy Carter in 1976:
Hartman and the other few advisors who Ford had consulted had opposed the idea of a Nixon pardon. However, Ford went ahead with it, and it probably cost him the reelection. Most people two decades later tended to agree with Hartman’s later view in this quotation.
