Source:Associated Press– President Gerald R. Ford (Republican, Michigan) nominating Governor Nelson Rockefeller (Republican, New York) to be Vice President of the United States, in 1974.

Source:The New Democrat

“20 Aug 1974) United States President Gerald Ford nominates Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President.”

From the Associated Press

After President Gerald Ford lost the 1976 election for President to Jimmy Carter, he later said that he regretted not keeping Vice President Rockefeller on his ticket with him. But President Ford thought he needed a more populist, more of an outsider to the Republican Leadership in Washington and someone who had better relations with the populist base of the Republican Party. which is why he replaced Rockefeller, with Senator Bob Dole. Senator Dole just happened to be Chairman of the Republican National Committee in the early 1970s, but that’s a different story.

I think Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller, represented the two dominant and competing factions of the Republican Party, before the populist Christian-Right base took over the party in the early 1990s. Ford was a Conservative Republican from Michigan. Rockefeller was a Progressive Republican from New York. So one of the reasons, to go along with Ford having a lot of respect for Rockefeller, that Ford nominated him for Vice President, was perhaps to unite the Republican Party behind him, when he ran for President in his own right in 1976.