America in '76 (1)

A call on Governor Wallace

Norman Lamont, MP

When I put it to Governor Wallace in his office in Montgomery, Alabama, that everyone I had met in Washington, including some distinguished liberals, had said that he held all the cards in the Democratic Party, his reply was quick: "Ah never goes out of this room, and they get ever so excited up there in Washington. Ah don't hold any cards, but the people ah represent, they hold all the cards." It was a typical Wallace remark expressing disdain for Washington and portraying himself as the champion of the forgotton people. So too was his reaction on hearing my party: "Conservative? that sounds real good." His aides nodded. "But of course that's really liberal."

Wheelchair-bound Governor Wallace is a figure who can't be left out of any calculations about the Democratic Party in 1976. His importance has been recognised by Presidential candidates like 'establishment liberal Sargent Shriver, Senator Jackson and even Edward Kennedy; all of them have been 'down to Alabama to share a platform with the Governor and to "laud his spunk."

Many of those who go used to attack him as a racist. Attitudes have changed since they discovered his vote-catching appeal the day after he was shot in May 1972; it turned out that he had won not only the Primary in Maryland, a border state, but that he had also won a far more significant victory in the industrial heartland of Michigan with an astonishing 51 per cent of the vote. From then on he could no longer be regarded as a purely Southern phenomenon.

Wallace seems determined not to let his disability interfere with his Presidential ambitions (" 'cause a fellow can't walk, don't mean he can't run"). When he speaks at meetings nowadays he leans on a device to give ar, appearance of standing up. What is more difficult to disguise and what is not widely realised is his poor hearing. But undoubtedly he has staged a remarkable physical and mental comeback and is now planning his fourth and most ambitious attempt at the Presidency.

Wallace seems placed to do better than ever before: the economic climate is right; the disillusionment with liberalism continues; he appeals as an independent to those distrustful of parties; even the changes in the laws about fund-raising will help a candidate who draws most of his support from small donations; in the north the racial situation has deteriorated sharply and opinion has hardened; even in liberal Massachussetts Edward Kennedy is frequently greeted these days by angry antibussing demonstrators often drawn from his former Irish-Catholic supporters.

But his greatest advantage is the yawning gap in the Democratic Party. No fewer than seven candidates have declared themselves for the Presidency but none have yet aroused any enthusiasm. By contrast Wallace is a big crowd-puller, a spell-binding orator and a genuinely funny raconteur. It is awareness of his strength that has prompted moderate southerners like Terry Sanford, a former Governor of North Carolina, to come forward specifically as anti-Wallace candidates, claiming to be able to hold him in the South and yet project a national appeal.

Many well placed people in the Democratic Party expect Wallace to come to the convention with more delegates than any other candidate. Because many delegates will only be committed to a candidate for the first round of voting it is confidently expected that Wallace can then be cut off from the nomination; according to this view, the, convention would then go on to choose an old-timer like Muskie or Humphrey, or that Edward Kennedy would feel compelled to accept the nomination, if this were the only way to save the party.

But a "brokered convention" of this kind will not dispose of Wallace that easily. His could still be the most important voice in the choice of the candidate. Or perhaps, shut off from the nomination, after a series of victories in the Primaries, he will be more determined to run as a third party candidate as he did in 1968. Then he ran under the banner of the American; Independent Party with General Curtis Le May as his running mate. "Right now," he told me, "it's the Democratic Party, but if we don't get what we want, maybe it will be. the Americani Party." Any such intervention would be! uncertain but could be crucial.

There has evenbeen talk of a Wallace/ Reagan ticket which would have considerable rightwing appeal although the two are very different. Reagan is basically an establishment figure of ultra-conservative views: Wallace is an anti-establishment populist figure in the Southern tradition of Huey Long. They both want to cut back the powers of the federal government; Reagan because he distrusts size and spending; Wallace because he believes in States' rights.

Predictably, there is a 'New Wallace' as surely as there were new Nixons. The new Wallace has been fashioned with the influenct of his attractive and svelte second wife, Cornelia, who has smoothed away some of the rough edges. Now he wears more fashionable clothes; wider, brighter ties. He goes to some lengths to change his image on the race issue, attending conferences of black mayors, and personally crowning the University of Alabama's first black homecoming queen. He needs black votes to get elected Governor of Alabama and seems to have some success. My Negro taxi driver voted for him and expressed the view, "He's not that bad, I don't know what all the fuss is about." Another Negro told me that Alabama schools were more integrated than in some other Southern states. It's all a long long way from the days the little Governor stood in the door against integration and from the famous declaration: "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation for ever."

But sometimes the new image cracks a little. There was the embarrassing incident of the Governor's comments to a groutialf foreign journalists that the United States had fought the wrong people in the war. Perhaps more alarming than the Governor's strange views and certainly more revealing about the' Democratic Party was the. fact that not one of the declared presidential candidates felt able to comment on Wallace's remarks.

In 1972 Wallace campaigned on the slogan, "Send them a message." The themes are likely to be similar in 1976; law and order, the plight of the little people who have been hit by inflation, taxation and the large corporations. Perhaps unemployment Mill now be added to the list and blamed on eastern-state bankers. Race will not be mentioned, although it will be implicit in much of what he says, especially on bussing.

In American politics it sometimes happens that two ideologically opposed candidates draw their support from the same ethnic and religious groups. Polls used to show a high proportion of Robert Kennedy's supporters had Wallace as a second preference. So too it may be that the only person who can really stem the Wallace tide in '76 is Edward Kennedy, who has nothing in common with Wallace except a strong following among blue-collar voters.

From a distance, the American political system frequently seems more unstable than it really is. Like other populists who have gone before him, Wallace will be stopped from becoming President. But no one can stop him having a large say in who does.

Norman Lamont is Conservative MP for Kingston-upon-Thames