He led with honesty and civility

Gerald R. Ford's tenure was limited, and uniquely inherited because of scandal. But we can be proud that the only Michiganian to be president healed the nation and restored confidence in the White House after an American nightmare.

Ford also merits remembrance for candor and civility all too rare among those who were elected to the presidency and held it longer.

Ford, who for a quarter a century was a congressman from Grand Rapids, has a temporary historical niche as the last moderate Republican president -- one who declared on CNN 23 years after leaving the White House:

"I feel very strongly that the Republican Party ought to be the party of the middle -- not an extreme right wing party and duplicate the mistake that my Democratic friends made for about three elections of being too far to the left."

Many a Michiganian has coveted the presidency. Former territorial Gov. Lewis Cass was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 1848. A century later, Owosso's Tom Dewey, then New York governor, lost as Republican nominee to Harry Truman -- despite polling that suggested Dewey would win and a Chicago Tribune headline that said he did.

Later in the 20th century, presidential ambitions of six-term Democratic Gov. G. Mennen "Soapy" Williams fizzled as Michigan had a financial crisis all too common for Michigan governors. Republican Gov. George Romney made a more serious bid for the nomination, but also failed.

Among those with a pivotal role in helping make Ford a Made-in-Michigan president was then-U.S. Sen. Bob Griffin of Traverse City, who at six crucial points aided Ford's climb to congressional leadership and to the presidency.

For starters, Griffin was instrumental among "Young Turk" House Republicans who helped Ford by a 73-67 vote in 1965 to replace House Minority Leader Charlie Halleck of Indiana.

Ford, expressing his moderate roots, would later write in his 1979 autobiography, "A Time To Heal," that Halleck "simply failed to project the progressive, affirmative image that we needed to turn things around for our party."

Especially notable in Ford's path to the presidency is the role that Griffin, then Senate minority whip, played in convincing Nixon that he should resign.

In a letter to Nixon, Griffin said "unless you choose to resign, the House will adopt articles of impeachment making necessary a trial in the Senate." He left no doubt about the outcome.

Griffin was an adviser when Ford went to hearings on his nomination to be vice president. When Ford became president, Griffin was among a handful of close associates involved in planning for the transition.

At the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Griffin led the fight that helped defeat Ronald Reagan's challenge to Ford's nomination.

Ford was nominated by Michigan Gov. William G. Milliken., who said he "first became president without our nomination, and without the American mandate. Now, he has earned both."

Griffin also was among 10 Republicans (including Michigan pollster Robert Teeter) at a 3:15 a.m. meeting with Ford to, as Ford wrote, "decide on the nominee" for vice president. The meeting broke up without a decision, but Ford by about 10 a.m. had decided on Sen. Bob Dole.

Griffin said that Ford came to leadership in Congress by doing his homework and working harder than others.

"He mastered the rules of the House, learned how to be a strategist and a tactician, and kept on traveling all over the country giving speeches -- he was an iron man," Griffin said.

That comment from Griffin comes from "Gerald Ford and the Future of the Presidency" by Jerald F. terHorst, who had a brief stint as Ford's White House press secretary after a long career with The Detroit News.

Ford, wrote terHorst, told reporters back then that he considered himself a "progressive conservative on domestic issues, although more liberal on international affairs."

He also said Ford "sees the Republican Party as an umbrella of many hues and colorations, big enough for the North and South and everybody in the middle -- where Ford counts himself."

That's a view Ford repeated in countless interviews between leaving office and this earth.

On his 90th birthday, NBC asked how he wanted his place in history to be viewed. He replied:

"When historians 50 years from now objectively write about the Ford Administration, I think, hope, they will say that President Ford healed the wounds of Watergate, ended the tragedy of the war in Vietnam, solved our economic problems that were serious, and restored public confidence in the White House itself."

That he did.

George Weeks is the former politics columnist for The Detroit News.