yup

He later concluded that it cost him the 1976 election.

certainly a good number used that as a rationalization for their vote for carter.

however, the pardon helped considerably to "put it all behind us". sure, there was still plenty of talk about watergate, but it quickly became all in the past tense. if we imagine a world in which ford didn't pardon nixon, we have to imagine that there would have been continued investigations and trials and a longer period of time in which watergate was talked about in the present tense, as a still unfolding saga.

ford has more personal integrity in that scenario, but the republican "brand" would have been marred to a further extent than it was in real life. the 1976 election could have turned into more of a simple referendum on watergate and republicans might have lost in a landslide.

And I am guessing that undated pardons have already been prepared.

The real question is "Can the President pardon himself?"

The simplest interpretation is that the president can pardon any federal criminal offense, including his own, but cannot pardon an impeachment. In other words, Clinton is free to immunize himself from criminal prosecution, but has no power over Congress.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/1998/12/can_president_clinton_pardon_himself.html

Gerald Ford offered conditional amnesty to some draft dodgers. Carter, however, seeking to heal the war's physic wounds, set no conditions, although some individuals were excluded from the blanket pardon.

it would be delicious if they "got away with" all kinds of federal lawbreaking due to an abuse of the pardon power only to get tripped up by some state law.

Hopefully there is some kind of connection and there are State charges..not a damn thing Trump can do about that.
Remember, the Russian lawyer who he met with was here in the US to be part of the defense team for Prevezon.

i'll take whatever we can get against these criminals, but i would hope for some crime relating to the campaign and/or abuses in office.

campaigns are subject to state law so this is certainly possible; abuses in office is mostly federal law so this is less likely.

Ford pardoned Nixon (as part of a deal).

Both Bush's for some of their staff.

Carter pardoned all the draft dodgers of the Vietnam War that fled the country.

None of them went to trial.

I suspect we may be seeing that again soon. But when it happens, it means Trump is already writing is resignation speech.

...for the same reasons Ford pardoned Nixon.

"There were no historical or legal precedents to guide Ford in the matter of Nixon’s pending indictment, but after much thought, he decided to give Nixon a full pardon for all offenses against the United States in order to put the tragic and disruptive scandal behind all concerned. Ford justified this decision by claiming that a long, drawn-out trial would only have further polarized the public."

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-explains-his-pardon-of-nixon-to-congress

Rich was a federal fugitive at the time in Switzerland. He had been indicted but never tried.

And continue on his merry way.

There would be outrage on the left but the right would dismiss it as nonsense and everything will continue as before with the scandal behind us and no consequences for anyone involved.

I don't have faith that the outrage would take out enough Republicans to make a huge difference because of the humongous right wing propaganda machine that envelops much of the country.

How wonderful.