My good friend Mike, a staunch Obama hater, agrees with you about Ford. Here's a little-known fact about Ford, ask your friend if he knew about this...
After the bitterly-contested Republican primaries in 1976 between Ford and Reagan, Reagan and his camp were so angry that Reagan refused to campaign in key states where Reagan had support (Texas and North Carolina in particular, and also even Tennessee). Ford lost all of those states to Carter. We'll never know what would have happened otherwise, but it's another example of Reagan the legacy versus Reagan the actual man.
