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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday; March 20; 1968
Gov. Wallace's husband runs for president
(Editor's note: This article is part of a series dealing with the 1963 presidential race and the election process.)
By John Marshall Kansan Staff Reporter
George Wallace—political spellbinder, and truck driver turned politician—is finally politically significant to the rest of the nation.
George Wallace—son of a dirt farmer, married to a former dime store clerk who is now governor of Alabama—may be a threat to the GOP presidential nominee in 28 states with 268 electoral votes —exactly the minimum number needed to win the presidency.
Wallace's newly formed American Independent Party is the strongest third party movement in this country since Teddy Roosevelt formed the Bull Moose ticket, ran for president—and contributed to the election of Woodrow Wilson.
An unfortunate factor in the Wallace campaign is the illness of Wallace's wife, Lurleen, the present governor of Alabama. The condition of Mrs. Wallace who is seriously ill with cancer and pelvic and abdominal disorders, may have an effect on the Wallace campaign procedure in the next few months.
Informed sources attribute Wallace's early success to his appeal to the "common man." The basis for Wallace's appeal lies in
his analysis of society, government, and the common man.
Wallace believes the common man has a common enemy: the "pseudointellectual" — sometimes also referred to by Wallace as the intelligentsia. The pseudointellectual, according to Wallace, is a condensed term for "a select elite group who have written guidelines for bureaus and court decisions, who have spoken from pulpits—some pulpits and some college campuses and in some newspaper offices. . .."
The former Alabama governor has said that the pseudointellectuals "look down their noses" at the common man—the workers, farmers, policemen, the little businessmen—saying to these common people that they don't know "how to get up in the morning or go to bed at night unless they write you a guideline, . . ."
Thus, Wallace identifies with the common man. He carries the burden of the common man painfully: on truck beds and street-corners, in high school gymnasiums and large auditoriums and—where he lately has been received with the most skepticism—the college campus.
Wallace wants to "wrest the government from the hands of the pseudointellectual."
"There is a coming collision in this country between the school intellectual community and the popular intentions of the people," Wallace says.
Wallace has long been associated with the civil rights issue, the question of riots and crime, and the problem of "federal intervention in the affairs of the individual state."
Wallace has an unsuccessful record in preventing integration in elementary and secondary schools in Alabama. Following his scuffle with the Kennedy administration over the Birmingham crisis (Wallace's "bar the schoolhouse door" stand) in 1963, Wallace became a political martyr in the eyes of southern segregationists. However, he rejects the idea that he is a racist and a bigot.
"I was raised among Negroes. I have shed tears at their funerals and I have shed tears at their bedside as they lay dying—Negroes that helped to raise me and my father and my grandfather."
In Kansas City recently, Wallace was asked if, since he advocated segregation, he weren't a racist.
"I have never said anybody is inferior," Wallace replied. "What I want to work for in Alabama is the control of the public school system by the state."
Though Wallace wants to leave the federal government out of the state school system, he favors federal aid to education. However, Wallace disagrees with the Office of Education's desegregation guidelines.
Wallace has established himself comfortably in the line of Southern politicians—not only because of his folklasy approach to state issues, but also his concern for his state's financial situation.
During his two terms as governor of Alabama, he more than doubled his state's bonded indebtedness—by $289.5 million. The bond issues were for highways ($100 million), education, dock facilities, industrial developments, and the Huntsville Space Center museum—all of which he says are geared to the interests of the common man.
Wallace also has geared his education budgets higher than any other Alabama governor—$284 million, as compared to $150 million under his predecessor.
On foreign alliances, Wallace believes "the American people are tired of allies which take from us but refuse to assist us in the preservation of freedom."
On state issues, domestic policy, and foreign affairs, the Wallace logic and the American Independent Party appeal is simple: more state's rights, less federal intervention; escalate the war in Vietnam without nuclear weapons and let the generals run the war; squash riots and racial tension with troops, even if they have to "stand two feet apart with two-foot long bayonet."
Evidently, Wallace is not seeking political power—even though he has it—by way of political office (most certainly, critics say,
Wallace could be elected senator
from Alabama).
Mathematically, he already has a chance for the presidency. At a minimum, Wallace would need only 34 per cent of the popular vote in a state to win that state's electoral pledge to the presidency if the Republican and Democratic candidates split evenly.
Wallace at one time believed he could win the presidency along this line. But informed sources say his real threat lies in his apparent ability to throw the presidential race into a frenzy, and possibly into the House of Representatives.
In the primary campaigns Wallace may affect both Republican and Democratic balloting. In New Hampshire he polled nearly 300 votes on the GOP ballot and slightly more than 225 from Democrats—all write-ins.
The Wallace campaign is most damaging to the Republican effort in the South. If the American Independent Party gains in Southern strength at the present rate, or at least maintains its strength, the damage to Republican politics in the South could be irreparable by Nov. 5.
See Wallace page 16
BiC Medium Point 19+