Looking back over the last 40 years, the presidential
campaign that most closely resembles this year's is the contest
between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976. . . . .
The Republican president who had been elected and re-elected in the
last two campaigns, Richard Nixon, had dismal favorability ratings,
far lower than George W. Bush's. His name could scarcely be
mentioned at the Republican National Convention. The Democratic
nominee was a little-known outsider. . . .