Starting September 9, C-SPAN will present a new series, “The Contenders”. Each of the fourteen shows will present the story of a presidential candidate who ran and lost, but who changed U.S. political history. The series includes three candidates who ran outside the major parties: Eugene Debs, George Wallace, and Ross Perot. The others in the series are Henry Clay, James G. Blaine, William Jennings Bryan, Charles E. Hughes, Al Smith, Wendell Willkie, Thomas E. Dewey, Adlai Stevenson, Barry Goldwater, Hubert Humphrey, and George McGovern. The shows will be broadcast at 8 p.m, one per week. Thanks to Jack Ross for the link.
At last, a chance to recognize HHH and Governor Wallace. However, I have to wonder why they have Debs and not also have Norman Thomas?
How about 1860 ???
Count the about 620,000 DEAD on both sides in 1861-1865 — due to having MORON leaders and generals.
They talked about that last night on the series intro show, asking “How could they jump forty years past the 1860 Election?”
I just say the hour and 1/2 long round-table discussion they have posted at the link, and I can’t wait to see the actual series.
It looks great!
I still beleive today, had George Wallace concentrated more in the South – especially Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina, as well as the Border States, and including two or three northern states which Nixon narrowly carried, that the 1968 Presidential election would have been thrown into the US House of Representatives, and from that “wheeling and dealing” George Wallace would have emerged as the new Vice-President with either Richard Nixon or Hubert Humphrey as the new President. Any one agree or disagree?
Natural Born Citizen Party will see what can be done to save our constitutional republic from death spiral of the DNC/RNC new world order progressives in 2012.
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#5 Alabama Independent, who’d you vote for in ’68? I take it that you were a Wallace fan.
AI, one of Wallace’s big mistakes was choosing Curtis LeMay as a running mate- it did hurt him in the polls afterwards.
Ezra Taft Benson was also considered, but the Church wouldn’t let him run.
But if was Wallace’s running mate instead- then Wallace might have garnered a few electoral votes in the rocky mountain states, perhaps.
Cody Quirk:
Wallace should have told the segregationists who were heavily financing his campaign to “get lost” and stuck with former Kentucky Governor A.B.”Happy” Chandler – his 1st pick. Still, Wallace should have centered on a “southern strategy” as I outlined earlier. I don’t believe Wallace could have carried any western/mountain states – even with someone like Ezra Taft Benson on the ticket as VP. I was amused in listening to the C-Span coverage of the Wallace campaigns, that the spokesman (whose name I don’t recall) too agreed that Humphrey might have selected Wallace as his VP choice in ’72 especially if Wallace had not gotten shot. Don’t think they could have beaten Nixon in ’72 General Election, but still believe if ’68 election had been thrown into the US House, Wallace would have been the VP for either Nixon or Humphrey – when all the “wheeling and dealing” was over. What a heck of an administration that would have been – whether with Nixon or Humphrey. Oh how I long for another good “spoiler” campaign that Wallace almost gave us.
#10 AI. “Wallace should have told the segregationists who were heavily financing his campaign to ‘get lost.'”
Except there’s one main problem with that – Wallace WAS a segregationist and pursued white supremacist policy actions in his state as governor. He’s who Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of in his “I have a dream” speech when he said: “I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of ‘interposition’ and ‘nullification'”…
George Wallace: “I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” “If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it’ll be the last car he’ll ever lay down in front of. ” “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever!”
BTW, why in the world did they not include J. Strom Thurmond?
Wallace did eliminate the slogan ‘White Supremacy’ from the Democratic ballot and did a few other things for the benefit of blacks.
He also stuck by Harry Truman when Storm Thurmond was running as the ‘Dixiecrat’ candidate for President.
Another thing was his “Segregation Forever” speech wasn’t written by him and he didn’t bother to read the thing over first before he gave it- it was a last minute thing.
George Wallace was basically the typical southern populist who, as it was common during that time, used the race issue only if it benefited him politically.
However by the time the 1968 President election came, he had abandoned segregation and campaigned on a states rights/ law & order platform.
BTW- in 1968, Strom Thurmond was a staunch Republican and supporting Nixon, and was the reason why Wallace didn’t carry South Carolina in that election.
Libertarian Voter; You did not get the point of my statement; “Wallace should have told the segregationists who were heavily financing his campaign to ‘get lost.’” Whether Wallace was the type of “segregationist” as you apparently desire to identify him, is debatable. It is strange, that as a “segregationist” Wallace still received most of the Black vote when he ran for governor for his 3rd and 4th terms. Even his wife – Lurleen – as the Democratic nominee in 1966 got more Black votes than the other candidates. You need to study your history. Obviously you are not from Alabama or the South – or you have decided to develop a pre-conceived bias against the South and George Wallace.
Wallace – like most Democrats, Republicans, and serious independents running for President – was trying to reach out to a broader voting population in 1968. This is why his 1st pick for VP was former Kentucky Governor A.B. “Happy” Chandler. But because Chandler was perceived as a “moderate” on race relations, Wallace’s primary finanical backers – being hard-headed and stubborn like most of these type of people are – balked at Chandler – and Wallace backed off – resulting in the weakening of The Wallace Campaign with the LeMay debacle.
If anything, Wallace was a true American Populist. Perhaps, and sadly – he did depend – for political success in Alabama – too much on the racial upheaval and turmoil of his day, but Wallace was NOT a racist. He was very “people-oriented” philosophically, and unfortunately was caught up in a time when political success depended on extracting from the “darker side” of the policial issues of the day.
Had my theory that Wallace could have emerged as the VP for either Nixon or Humphrey in a stalemated 1968 Presidential election became a reality, Wallace would have proven in due time to the nation and the world he was not a racist, but genuinely believed in real constitutional government, but a constitutional government which genuinely helps people – not the special interests of the social engineers we still find in the Democratic Party today, or the self-serving, capitalist profiteers like we find in the GOP today.
Wallace may have been elected President in his own right in 1976 – either as a coalition choice of the Republicans, or the regular Democratic nominee – depending on whom he had served under as the President from 1969 to 1977 – and assuming the theory I discussed earlier had become a reality.
Where to begin. (Paragraph) 5) Add Florida into the mix, plus HHH winning a combo of Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and you would have had the election being deadlocked. 9) LeMay cost Wallace five million votes, and with someone else he would have gotten 18 million. I read the backup candidate for Wallace was former La. Gov. Jimmie Davis. I’ve never heard that the Mormon church would not let Benson run in 1968. 10) HHH wanted Wallace as vice president in 1972, “in a wheelchair, on crutches, or walking,” was the quote that he was suppose to have used. Together, they would have defeated Nixon, won the 1976 election, then Wallace becomes president after HHH’s death in 1978. As to an election agreement in 1968, what makes you think Wallace would have settled for second spot? 11) Why are you using another one of Dr. King’s stolen quotes? (1952 Republican Convention) Governor Wallace was a segregationist, not a hate filled racist like Lester Maddox or Malcolm X. In the south, you had to be a segregationist to get elected, it was expected of you. Wallace changed after his first term as governor. 12) Strom Thurmond, Norman Thomas, Henry Wallace, Robert LaFollette. 14) Chandler, Davis, Benson, any three of them would have been better that LeMay. At least they would have kept their five million votes.
Some folks may recall that Guv. Wallace when old and near death went to a black church and asked for forgiveness for his EVIL in his younger days.
Generally reviewing the what if stuff in the EVIL rotted past is a TOTAL waste of time.
REAL Democracy NOW via P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
I’ve read that George Wallace was considering either Happy Chandler or Colonel Sanders as his VP picks.
Does anybody know how Wallace would’ve done with either of them as VP?
No. 15, you’ve posted quite a number of good facts, and a couple of questionable ones. Whether LeMay cost Wallace 5 million or more votes nationally is moot, but it most likely did cost him the states of Tennessee, South Carolina, and possibly North Carolina. Still,if LeMay was so bad, why didn’t Wallace also lose Georgia or Arkansas? LeMay’s effect could be debated for eons. In fact, Wallace could probably have picked Governor Lester Maddox and still ran as strong as he did. Wallace got overconfident in winning the Southern states and should have remained in the South more, using the bully pulpit with Southern voters, saying, “we’ve got to stick together, as this may be the last time the South will be able to control the outcome of a national election.” Instead, Wallace’s handlers had him running ragged campaigning in states he didn’t have a “snow balls’ chance in hell” of winning. Also, if he had campaigned more in Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin, he might have pulled more votes away from Nixon giving those states to Humphrey. And as far as Wallace taking the 2nd spot in 1968, you better believe he would have. Wallace was no dummy. He knew he was not going to ever be elected President on a 3rd party ticket and probably not even as the Democratic nominee – if such had ever occurred. But Wallace would have jumped at the VP spot in a heartbeat, as he knew this would probably be the closet he would ever come to live in the White House, but more importantly, have some meaningful say in the national administration – whether with Nixon or Humphrey. The biggest problem – had this scanario ever became a possibility – is if either Nixon or Humphrey could have gotten enough of their respective successful presidential electors to instead vote for Wallace as the VP. That is where all of this would have hinged. Too bad, we never got the opportunity to see what would have happened.
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Even though he had LeMay as his running mate- on most of the states he was on the ballot, former Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin was picked as his temporary running mate, since in those states he needed to have a running mate listed when at the time, he hadn’t decided on who his actual running mate was going to be.
So technically, LeMay did hurt Wallace’s chances, but as to what extent he did is a mixed bag, and depends on the state itself.
To Ala. Ind., Wallace won Georgia because Gov. Maddox endorsed him, and Nixon and HHH split the rest of the vote. A good point about the vote in Arkansas, however. In November, 1968, it went all over the place, voting for Wallace for President, re-electing a Republican (Win Rockefeller) for governor, and a Democrat for senator.
To Michael Says: Yes the Arkansas vote in ’68 was indeed strange as you pointed out. What it also points out, is that most people still vote for the “person” and not the “party.” Even if they will only vote for a Dem or a GOP nominee, it is still the person whom they think of as voting for – not the party label. This is one problem 3rd parties have – they can’t understand why people will not vote for their nominees from top to bottom on a ticket. People are still for the most part “independent-minded” and vote for the person. That’s why I call my handle on these posts “An Alabama Independent.”