This isn't your father's Grand Old Party, to put it mildly. Republicans used to believe in democracy. In 1976, President Gerald Ford was locked in an extremely tight race with former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. At 3:30 a.m. on Election Night, Mississippi, which went heavily
for Nixon four years earlier, put Carter over the top. When he woke up that morning, Ford called Carter to concede. He had laryngitis, so he handed the phone to his young chief of staff, Dick Cheney, who read what Carter later called "a characteristically gracious" telegram. The
Republicans were crestfallen. "Contrary to reports that I took the loss badly," Bob Dole, Ford's running mate, deadpanned, "I want to say that I went home last night and slept like a baby--every two hours, I woke up and cried." Ford would have won with a combined change of just
18,000 votes in Ohio and Hawaii. Twenty states were decided by 5 points or less. As in 1960, when Nixon conceded a much closer election than 2020 despite reports of irregularities, Republicans were not sore losers. They believed in democracy. https://www.amazon.com/His-Very-Best-Jimmy-Carter/dp/1501125486
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