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In our second episode of the three part look at the 1976 Campaign we head into the aftermath of the divided Republican Convention after Gerald Ford has secured the nomination. Ronald Reagan lets President Ford know that he does not want to be the Vice Presidential nominee and that decision opens the door for my personal hero to walk on to center stage in the Republican Party. A spot that Senator Bob Dole of Kansas would occupy for the next two decades. 

Then Gerald Ford will accept his party's nomination for President and invite his vanquished opponent down to the stage to make some appropriate remarks. Ronald Reagan would give arguably the greatest speech of his entire career that night, and everyone in the convention hall would be left with the feeling they may have nominated the wrong man, 

Gerald Ford would then head off into the fall campaign to face Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter in what appeared to everyone as a hopeless situation. Ford was 33 points down in the polls. What we shall then bare witness to was arguably one of the greatest near comebacks in all of American history, as we will learn in the next episode. 

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