The Robert MacNeil Report; 17; George Wallace

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police right right the peak week leaving some three hundred organizers of a wallace for president campaign are gathering in montgomery alabama this evening for a strategy session and dinner tomorrow is the big day governor wallace's announced a news conference in the morning what he will say will come to know one as any surprise you announced what people have been expecting them to do for a long time that he's running for president again he will try for the democratic party's nomination for a spy during the primary route his aides say he will not enter

the new hampshire primary but it will be on the massachusetts in florida ballot as well as a number of other state primaries george wallace first burst on the national scene when he stood in the schoolhouse door at the university of alabama trying to hold back the tide of history court ordered desegregation he was acting out the promise that he made in his inaugural address as governor a few months earlier to stand for segregation now segregation tomorrow segregation forever he lost that battle of course but it did help to make a national figure that was in nineteen sixty three or nineteen sixty eight he was running for president on a third party ticket the american independent party he racked up a nod in considerable number of votes nearly ten million about thirteen and a half percent of the total and there are many who feel it up for george wallace it would humphrey would've won the nineteen sixty eight election instead of richard nixon the strength the show than sixty eight made george wallace a serious contender for the democratic party's nomination in nineteen seventy two he won

five primaries that year including maryland and michigan and finished second in wisconsin and pennsylvania is active campaign came to a sudden halt on that horrifying afternoon in may when a would be assassin shot and very nearly killed him left him paralyzed from the waist down but he refused to be counted out altogether they promise to show up at the democratic national convention in seventy two and almost every leading politician in funk into gollum and george wallace in a wheelchair recovering from near fatal wounds was still a force to be reckoned with today he has four year stronger and four years more determined and more than ever a political force to be reckoned with so how will the democratic party with its embarrassment of candidates reckon with this perennial maverick that depends in part on how well mr wallace does in the early primaries burns roper from your national opinion surveys how will the primaries it was this and so i would think that he could do very well in the primaries and i'm not sure he will do well he's showing a little less strength when

we showed him to have a year ago what scares us all but he he comes through to the majority of the american public as an extremist and extremists have a wave doing well in primaries go badly elections well we've proliferation of candidates this time make it easier for wallace to distinguish himself from the others to make himself his appeal more distinctive are harder i would think that because of the nature of his appeal he could be a pretty distinctive and this time the your new democratic party rules will affect him how you said well i'm not sure i can answer that no i think that would that be that is very extremism is apt to make him do extremely well have you any sense for

imposing or whether that's likely to be repeated in the states where he did well in seventy two or have new areas been added house all of the data we got is national and i can only look at it and sexual terms of not only state by state basis is there any evidence and sexual turns that he comes out more strongly in for instance the northeast or the northern industrial states he is strongest in the south but when he's whispering says comparatively uniform nationwide our weakest and what you said that he showed a slight drop from this time last year do you have an explanation on issues of why that is or is it just the fact that they're now more democrats in the field not i don't think it can be that that we've asked two questions we gave people a whole list of all of the candidates in both parties candidates and prospective candidates and asked them if there was anyone on the list they could be really happy with this president and that he dropped two points on that measure the sheer became and

forth of those candidates we asked about what he was two points lower than the sheer and we asked people that's still within your margin of error and yes except that we also asked are there any people on that was to feel strongly should not be president and he came out first and to points higher this year than he did a year ago and with over twice as many say he should not be president as saying he should be there just to sum up you think he could do very well in the permanent memories yes it's torture jon laramore said with a ravenous beetle is a carwash and roche a political or their windows and a regular commentator on wash and weekend review along many of the things they do you think was going to own the primer i think he can do well in the primary sham but mainly as a spoiler because i tend to agree with mr roper one comes down to convention time you'll come in with you know perhaps more delegates than any other candidate but not enough to win the nomination i don't think he would be acceptable as a nominee but as a

spoiler i thinking be very important for example if he would be several a peep of that the other lead candidate in their home stay you take a few of them lloyd bentsen in texas birch by an indiana terry sanford in the north carolina jimmy carter in georgia i don't think they could go to the convention and say i ought to be the nominee because that george wallace in between my state that is interesting to me that the his role is mainly that of a spoiler it what you think was his main appeal is now as it is as a heart back to racial issues or as he carved out a new thing in from around the country out of that well i think it was his appeal is to the frustrations as a company you know it's kind of a cliche now than the frustration people have populist overtones but the remarkable thing to me is at wallace's speech has literally as he has charted been stolen by president ford vice president rockefeller and other political figures on the scene to get the government off our backs do something for the middle class they are the ones

they're being included in this society i saw him down in south carolina win alabama when the vice president rockefeller with wooing the conservative when he was still a candidate rightfully so they don't mind me let's bring out congressman bob backyard and the discussion now carson is a democrat from texas and as chairman of the democratic study group an organization of liberal moderate democrats in the house what's your assessment about how well wallace was going on in these primaries i think you do well in the primary as a government the reasons that have been stated here are the two main principal if he does distinguish himself as a separate position the separate force from most of the other candidates and secondly because of this frustration he was talking about a moment ago that there is an attitude that that government is against the people as an institution and he builds a lot of course every day i will guard is always build a lot on that

possession ultimately they have usually not been successful and i think it ultimately he will not be successful but i think that he does place himself in position to win a number of the primary will live there are nine other democratic candidates already in this race in what he says is true in your grave that he's speaking to the frustration which is widespread in the country gunst has been what about these other nine candidates could they get some of those walls vote away from all sorts of all centered around walls the individual yes i think that i think that they get a lot of boats from a presence that i only know texas well with respect its political climate i would very much doubt that was could take the vote away from benson texas and i would imagine that something like the same thing is true in the other states after all texas is a southern state after all it's a state that some time for response to the title well pseudo

popular form of wallace's uses but still i i can't imagine carrying the vote in texas against obama knew he had to they're three or chicken ranch in texas writes i listened the spill the big convention not paid you mention that you said that you thought that wallace would go to the convention with a tremendous number of delegates that they were going to mainly a nomination how can that be the democratic party is supposed to be a democratically run organization that was your last ones there were the most delegates why should he be the nominee or why should we have a strong role in who is the nominee but i think he may have a royal maybe even an influential role the conventional wisdom among democrats is that it will not be a bar in a ball or broke horrible or are you if you can't pay them off and that of course leads to the obvious conclusion that if he can't make it which he cannot he's going to find another way to make

him one thousand that will be outside a democratic party agree they can make it as either the nominee or the number two no integrated yes i do well i suppose if you're so he actually came well it's a clear majority of nationwide or something close to it that you could not say that he can't make it but i just don't think you you might be anything like that kind of a show of power and that there's a kind of wisdom and conventions and this kind of wisdom and hair in the parties having established the convention system rather than on election system for the nominee the convention has something of the feel of an out of whether or not the candidate is electable and of course this is not true give people a warning separately annan and a nomination for the presence that that's a reasonable observer not reject the convention system as a means of selecting we

can proceed what do you think of the list the situation i started to say propriety only to say that at all all other nine candidates all of the non declared candidate saying that not only do that i think wallace should get the nomination but they ruled that they would not go on a ticket with george wallace my question is is the democratic party and i really handled george wallace's it seems like he's in the wrong party we thought well of course the very fact that a man constantly runs for the highest office in the land without a commitment that he will remain with any particular party and if he does not win the democratic party he will go it will alter author's own is sen lee absolutely foreign to our system and indeed i think if a third party candidate that tight became the common situation and with the real threat of winning i don't like what's

been reported mr alper do you have any polls or anger saplings indicate whether george wallace's perceived as a democrat other people united states we don't have that we we do have the fact that the democrats more than either independence or republicans are inclined to say should not be president we also have the fact that when we ask people whether they saw was as a liberal a middle of the road or are conservative people tended to polarize whereas it was sort of an bell shape curve for most of the candidates we asked about it was a reverse her firewall us the largest percentage that he was a conservative the second largest percentage that he was a liberal and the smallest groups it was a middle of the road are what about ann and one other thing that's interesting is that a high percentage of conservatives characterize him as a liberal

eye percentage of liberals characterize him as a conservative and more of them in all the rotors characterized him either as a liberal or as a conservative than a character as anita miller sold at a sort of says he's not want me someone else or his vision for europe is he still at that a lot of the racial issues for open ah i can't really say the blacks are pretty strongly against him which would suggest that that he was now i can really say beyond that okay gentlemen thanks very much for the back in a moment it's interesting to note in this connection that ninety four percent of democratic leaders around the country predicted george wallace will not be on the party ticket at all in nineteen seventy six in a moment we'll examine his alternatives thank you

after jim white is a leading political strategist and campaign consultant on the republican side he helped mastermind barry goldwater's nomination in nineteen sixty four and since worked on the campaigns of ronald reagan and he managed the campaign senator james buckley the successful campaign senator james buckley used to i suppose wallace were denied the democratic nomination and did decide to run on a third party ticket who does he hurt more in your estimation the democratic candidate or a republican candidate that is a very difficult one to actually determine probably a democratic candidate with the real problem in the electoral process of nineteen seventy six of course as it was in seventy two hours we have this declining protests a patient and therefore you know well why the water is going to be and what we really will be the big question in nineteen seventy six and was on a third line well and the confusion and i think

the number of people with the world pork will vary from state to state so making specific judgments you have to do your analysis on the basis of the electoral votes but that could be argued that was to appeal to very much the same constituency that mr ford as mr nixon had to last appeal to this time why thank you can i do analysis wounding and seventy two may have said mr nixon's neck or in part well i don't think the latter one would be hard to combine with a sixty four percent win in the seventy two then i think it's much more arguable in the sixty eight election and i think the answer is yes i think you can make that case that he would be pulling up from a republican point where is all of this because earlier in this program it's that little kid was phenomena i think is that he started earlier than any other politician in america to articulate the frustrations of the american people and do it in a manner

that allowed himself to be posture there's a non politician which is what the people are looking for the board for nineteen seventy two seventy five seventy six can you imagine any circumstances irving joel snyder mr wallace's campaign director has talked about him just read and understand has rejected editor can you imagine any republican candidate for president taking mr wells on his ticket no i can't really see how mr wallace would move into the republican party it has traditionally been a democrat it has a legitimate claim as a democrat and the democrats are all were accepted the fact that he's coming into their party it would have to be a third party operation outside the framework the republican party itself wyden this album was first heard in washington mr white says faces that some aspects of wallace's campaign have become

right this time how much you think the liberal disillusionment which is a shorthand one census in the country might play into the hands of a candidate like him this year the tiredness of liberals as some of their own solution i think that becoming identified with a kind of negativism kind of it is a consistent conservative because i think that as most people perceive him is not the fun avoid any sense isn't a middle of the road but i think is losing some of the neo goss of a populist and i can't see how i could keep it too long because it's so easily provable of the innocent and collaboration i think that he's going to lose so that supporting terror in a desperate fight known which is a rather have a label about twenty five percent white those people in

houston ship channel and ethan hawke they support the care and he got a lot of votes that they got more than in any other poll it is more than he didn't say that more conservative areas but i think that i think he's losing that position because he has so consistently aren't taken positions in opposition to any kind of reform and i think that his record is bound to leak out over the forces like the record in alabama leslie as he was for a sales tax increase the sales to actually was about the alamo did he have to go into north carolina to support the electoral reform that the democrats have put in their analysis like knowing it your suggestions towards that but there was now

emerging something perhaps positive minister italy is perceived by a changing electorate do do believe there's nothing positive in his appeal that it was all negative the politics of frustration well i think that i think it's pretty largely i went after gray is pretty substantially negative is his appeal would be magnified live again that negative one with the hopes and he'll do something but gerber yes like i think it is almost completely negative and this whole strength is that he's not like the rest of those politicians in and therefore we can have confidence in them to be an awful lot of voters around the country and perhaps in this in this area who are hearing this and who like george wallace was hey this guy's just an understandable well sure the casualty are negative people bought an awful lot of owning the haters i think that the rover will agree and should be a negative an anti because it's us on the more small

failing with their anti because they want to stop the government get the governor mark my back they feel of a positive response on that they're going to be a good result was the year with the appeal itself isn't negative senator robert i can make two points that i think we've made no one is at the lost phenomenon that white talked about i think would exist without a george was first secondly i think that we are blinking the health issue here because we've been my impression that because your voice is in a wheelchair now from paralysis because of the assassination attempt of that many people particularly blue collar workers in industrial areas look at him a little differently than they did before he was wounded and i wonder if mr roper has found that through art and made any founding in that regard no we haven't we only know we don't we we don't know i think i get some sense of that in my own travels around that they look upon it now

is quite different and a day before he was shot but there was a phenomenon in when you agree would be there without your toilet i think you were there when they're often the decade of the sixties i think he happens to have institutionalized it better in the electoral process than anybody else knows they're also a bit isn't worth through europe with a much more attention was really having in this campaign and the press saying that what's more attention is needed to be to have to come clean or be smoked out from what he would do about the central issue facing the country the economy for instance in some more considerable more detail and i'm not so sure that iran and he didn't in nineteen sixty eight he didn't in nineteen seventy two before he was wounded so i'm not so sure he's going to be smoke that i like and that lack of a heart issue for a moment because i think that it is kind of critical to our fortunes in the next year what he fidgeted subject himself for example to an independent medical

examination to see whether he's really up to being president i think he's certainly shown i think that one of the other candidates might be compelled to do the same thing i think would be a good idea all around i would assume not that though we'd like a lot of things in this country and george wallace invented marble that turning if i had a lot of questions and so i just don't know either way physical an independent medical examination they will be determined as we go through primates because all of the other candidates are hopeful that they can recruit some of those borders that white vote for george wallace i'm not going to be that anxious to attack came on an issue that some people may very well object to is being kind of under the belt each can regrow roots of the public and raises itself what about the trip to europe that that was that was set up basically to

show that he was in good health mr lee yes i think it was buying the american people a bit too sophisticated now for the strategy of the kind of trick of going to showing that you are that you're up to it i just don't think that impressed a great many people i may be wrong but i just don't think that that even the loss supporters were all that impressed by that would you weren't all too well and the opposite of discounting the walls can have the same word would you continue to do that being reminded that was his path to better organized as time than ever before he understands the rules now the convention states you so far better funded in any of the other candidates were the direct mail campaign that was apparently a normal and when it's producing i don't think you're a discount the laws can say i think the immediate problem which we focused on has been indeed democratic party and i would then really what people have said there that the democratic party will not given the nomination but i think anybody who looks at the american political scene in nineteen seventy six and discounts george wallace's not

looking a political reality i think this man is going to have a substantial bloc of supporters in this country and is going to be depending on what happens is we go through the electoral process and the terminus beyond the surveys end of the actual translation of votes you're going to look at a man that that's going to be saying things are taking positions and going and that's going to affect the behavior patterns or worst of the people in it and pressure that with him back where we started with the indictment of boiler well very very possibly what the spoiler out awful critical contacted the tiny home idea that i wrote in the united states has for a natural which you mean when you say this time as a candidate i discount him as a prospective president of the united states because he is the one that is that in order to do well in the primaries he's got it maintain his extremism position but that very thing will kill them in the election in order to

do well in the election he's gonna move towards the center and that will keep him for lacking appeal in the primaries final comment i think that he's very much in the sign was originally outside the georgian government and it's already been nominated i'll prevented him from being elected in my opinion at least went a long way toward it might not know like in any way but he would've done much about it for instance you know it had not had to compete west was on the other side and of course with a neutral to know i think actually both humphrey and muskie in the middle gave him mcgovern only one place to get close to get the nomination to a certain extent i think the same thing is true with respect to our listeners seeking the knowledge to the audience hanging around was crystallized his position only a train ride which i think would make it very difficult for him

and no action juan that are furiously taken the stream of positions that mr robert talked about listening to me that though what used to be one extreme opposition that now become rather acceptable and respectable position because of the language of the ford rockefeller stages of the service i like your while mike thank you very much consensus seems to be here this evening i think i'm safe in saying that to mr wallace who will announce his candidacy tomorrow i will probably not get the republican nomination for the democratic nomination and will not be elected president of the united states in his third attempt i'm robert macneil jim lehrer and i will be there tomorrow night the case became the

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