Listening on Saturday morning to all these election year bits between Carter & Ford, and recalling that this was also one of the closest elections in history (one which came down to Ohio, like the last one). Wondering 'what if?'.
What if Ford had won in '76, and he was the one who suffered through the summer of '79 with the spike in petrol prices, shootings on the gas lines in suburbia, & then the Iranian hostage situation that fall and all through the campaign of 1980. It seems very likely that any incumbent and their party would then lose badly in 1980. Thus no Reagan in 1980, and he would simply have been too old after that.
ah, one can dream anyway...