following the recommendations of rog morton and dick cheney, stu spencer and bob teeter, president ford selected me to take over for his friend jack stiles after stiles had been killed in an automobile accident. stiles, of course, was president ford's delegate hunter in that very spirited 1976 republican primary against ronald reagan and later, of course, after rog became ill with cancer, president ford asked me to chair the president ford committee in the general election against jimmy carter. those of you old enough to remember will remember that those races, both of them, were really historic races settled by razor thin margins, both the race for the nomination and the general election contest. and they served as springboards for my career in national politics and public service. and so, my friends, i know you will understand when i say, thank you, mr. president, for the confidence that you showed in me at a critical point in my career. but more importantly, thank you, mr. president, for the confidence that you showed in america and the job that you did for america at a very difficul

on the night of the election, that afternoon, 5:30 in the afternoon, he went in with stu spencer and bob teeter to give him some of the exit polls, which weren't that promising, but they wrntd all that bad at that time, and i thought to myself that i might actually be able to light up the victory cigar that president ford had given me that afternoon. and it wasn't until early the next morning after 3:00 in the morning that we learned that jimmy carter had won the closest presidential election since 1916. the election was so close that had fewer than 10,000 votes shifted in ohio and hawaii out of a total of 81 million votes cast in the country, president ford would have won the vote in the ele electoral college and thereby won that election. despite the margin, the president was very stoic in defeat. he had worked very hard, so hard, you will remember that he had lost his voice. very, very hard. and he had come so very, very close. yet he graciously accepted the result. his longtime friend, the former st. louis cardinals catcher joe geragiola said that he had seen former cardinals gre

stu spencer said we have to get behind rubin. nothing happened. >> no. that's a good example of how the republican party is putting ideological purity in california above almost anything else. and, you know, they even are bringing out the big guns. grover norquist, he put a blistering piece up on flash report, a conservative piece. no good republican should vote for him. >> could i say one more thing about the top two? it's creating strange politics trying to get into the last two. whoever thought howard bur man would be sending mail to republicans to vote for him. the great satin for republicans. >> the great irony there is it was burman and his brother, michael burman, who introduced the gerri manned ders. >> talking to willie brown, he said the only one who wins in this one are the political consultants. even if you get 51% in the primary, you still have to go onto the general election. this is a system unlike any other state. so the consultants win all the way to november. that's exactly how they designed it. >> they always w