personal regret Quotes
Ford assumed the Presidency upon Nixon’s Watergate resignation. He was the only President in history who had never been elected to national office. When he pardoned Nixon he lost much of his support from the left and the middle. Weakened, he came under the influence of the very conservative wing of the Republican Party who urged him to dump his Vice President Nelson Rockefeller from the Republican ticket in the 1976 election. Rockefeller was a liberal republican who supported abortion rights and civil rights. Rockefeller, realizing that Ford’s nomination was in danger, volunteered to step down. {641394} Ford accepted and regretted his action as soon as he had done it. The result was that Ford lost to a relatively unknown Southern governor, Jimmy Carter. However the Conservative wing of the Republican Party had triumphed and the liberal republicans, who had been the backbone of the Republican Party since its inception did not play a significant role in the party for the next 30 years.