The ‘shocking’ debate gaffe that reshaped a presidential election

President Gerald Ford, right, and Jimmy Carter meet at the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia to debate domestic policy during the first of three Ford-Carter debates on Sept. 23, 1976. Ford's gaffe in the second debate would reshape the race. Like President Biden, Gerald Ford had a lot at stake in his debates against an aggressive challenger nearly 50 years ago. Both incumbents trailed in the polls and proposed the debates to jump-start their campaigns.

Carter noted that Republicans had criticized Ford’s foreign policy at their convention, a striking repudiation of an incumbent president. The party’s platform, driven by conservative supporters of challenger Ronald Reagan, had“that in pursuing détente we must not grant unilateral favors with only the hope of getting future favors in return.

Frankel seemed stunned. In a halting follow-up question, he gave Ford a chance to walk back his statement, asking, “I’m sorry, could I just follow — did I understand you to say, sir, that the Russians are not using Eastern Europe as their own sphere of influence in occupying most of the countries there, and making sure with their troops that it’s a communist zone?”

Still, it took about a day for the damage to sink in. The Times’s debate story didn’t mention the gaffe until the seventh paragraph; The Post made even less of the comment in its initial report. But by the following day, the backlash consumed news coverage.

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