The Washington Post has a good article from Lou Cannon on the 1976 Republican nomination and the 1976 general election. The comments center on Gerald Ford’s belief that Ronald Reagan cost him the White House in 1976. Despite Watergate, Ford went to his grave believing he could be elected President in 1976. Last month, I mentioned as much in a post called “What Motivates Hillary? Part 3.”

Gerald Ford went to his grave convinced that Ronald Reagan’s tepid support in the 1976 General Election cost him the Presidency. Clinton has the opportunity to act as spoiler in quite the same way that Reagan did. Reagan contested the nomination right to the convention. But, when it came time to give stump speeches and to join Ford on the road in order to win over what we now know to be “Reagan Democrats,’ Ronald Reagan was nowhere to be found.

The same dynamic is in effect again for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton I argued. Lou Cannon does an effective job of making the same case.

Barack Obama will soon become the presumptive Democratic nominee, and there is little doubt that Hillary Clinton will endorse him. The big question is whether she will campaign hard for Obama among constituencies where she can help him. Put another way: Will she choose to be Ronald Reagan in 1976 or Gerald Ford in 1980?

The outcome of the election could depend on the answer.

-Lou Cannon for The Washington Post, 3 June 2008