Video of Ford’s 1989 prediction that a female president wouldn’t happen “in the normal course of events” is surfacing as Kamala Harris is the likely Democratic nominee.
President Gerald Ford delivers an address from the White House after he was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States on Aug. 9, 1974. Nearly 35 years ago, former president Gerald Ford stood in a room full of schoolchildren in West Branch, Iowa, and faced an unexpected question.
“Mr. Ford, what advice would you give a young lady wanting to become president of the United States of America?” a bespectacled schoolgirl in a pink sweater and ponytail asked Ford in 1989, well after his own presidency ended.“I can tell you how I think it will happen — because it won’t happen in the normal course of events,” said Ford, who succeeded Richard M. Nixon when he resigned in 1974 in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.
“Either the Republican or Democrat political party will nominate a man for president and a woman for vice president, and the woman and man will win. So we’ll end up with a president, a male, and a vice president, a female,” Ford said.“And in that term of office of the president, the president will die, and the woman will become president under the law, our Constitution,” he added.
The video is resurfacing on social media, with many noting the parallels between Ford’s prediction and 2024 — as Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, who is rallying a groundswell of support from her party and is likely to be the Democratic nominee.
At the same time, there are key differences. A woman has indeed secured the nomination of a major party — in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination, though she lost the election to Donald Trump.Ford also said he could probably see a female president — at least under the conditions he outlined — happening in the next four to eight years. More than three decades later, there still hasn’t been a female president.
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