Candidates and Character.

The 1976 presidential election, a contest between a moderate Democrat and a moderate Republican, was not fought over issues. On the controversial topics of the day — busing, abortion, nuclear power, the Equal Rights Amendment — Carter and Ford held virtually identical moderate positions. They were also financially equal. A federal campaign-reform law capped expenditures at $21.8 million. The decisive issue was the character and competence of the candidates. Watergate, in a sense, made the election: whichever politician could demonstrate to the public that he was less political than the other would win. In that contest Carter held the advantage. He could honestly claim to be more a Washington outsider than Ford, and he had not pardoned Richard Nixon. In the general election Ford would be on the defensive. Because of that, Ford agreed to debate Carter on three occasions, the first...