Republican George Wallace?

[Assistant to the Regional Manager Cathcon]

Apparently, according to Rick Perlstein's book on the 1964 election, George Wallace was planning on announcing his conversion to the Republican party in 1964. However, days before he was planning on announcing, Strom Thurmond switched parties, and Wallace sure as Hell wasn't going to just ride on Thurmond's thunder and decided to stick with the Dems. What if Wallace doesn't get beaten? How does that affect his future, Alabama's future, and the nation's?

[Oldiesfreak1854]

George Wallace, a Republican???  Not a chance, bud.  Republicans were so much stronger on civil rights that it would have made absolutely no sense at all for Wallace to do that.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

The GOP leadership would have never accepted him either.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Wallace frequently said there wasn't "a dime's difference" between the two parties on civil rights, so I don't see why he would do that.

[Fuzzy Bear]

If Wallace had switched to the GOP after 1964 he would have been a far more influential politician, but a less famous one.  He would not have been a major factor as a Presidential candidate, but he would have become a key power broker in GOP politics.  He also would have accelerated the shift to the GOP in the South at the state and local levels.  Wallace would have been a formidable candidate for Senate against John Sparkman in 1966, and if he had won that election, it is quite possible that James Allen would have been elected to the Senate as a Republican in 1968.  Under those circumstances, the 1968 election would have been a cakewalk for Nixon, instead of the barnburner it turned out to be.  Nixon would have swept every Southern state, with the POSSIBLE exception of Texas, and his lead in the popular vote would have been a minimum of 7-8 points.

If this had happened, Wallace would not have run for President in 1972, would not have been assasinated, and would have had a longer, and more productive, political career.  He would have been a viable GOP candidate for President in 1976, or he may have been named as Ronald Reagan's running mate prior to the convention (in place of Richard Schweiker).  Such a selection may well have (in the context I am talking about) put Reagan over the top at the GOP convention, and may have enabled a Reagan-Wallace ticket to carry Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia, and (possibly) Florida and North Carolina.  Such a selection may, however, have cost the Republicans Illinois and Michigan, two key states Ford won in 1976.  Texas was close for Carter, and I think Texas MAY have gone for a Reagan-Wallace ticket in 1976, but it is also possible that a number of Northeastern states that went for Ford (NJ, CT, VT, ME) may have gone for Carter.

If Wallace had switched to the GOP after Nixon was elected, he'd have had 15 more minutes of fame, then anonymity.

[Simfan34]

Assassinated?

[Fuzzy Bear]

I meant shot and paralyzed.

I actually visited the shopping center where he was shot weeks before the shooting.  My family took a trip from Long Island to Washington, DC and stayed with a family member in Laurel, MD. 

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Read my previous posts: there is no way he would have ever become a Republican.  Also, the Republican shift in the South had very little, if anything, to do with race.  Ike carried several Southern states in 1952 and 1956 and Nixon did the same in 1960, despite both being strong supporters of civil rights and the Democrats putting racists and segregationists on their tickets all three times.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Read my previous posts: there is no way he would have ever become a Republican.  Also, the Republican shift in the South had very little, if anything, to do with race.  Ike carried several Southern states in 1952 and 1956 and Nixon did the same in 1960, despite both being strong supporters of civil rights and the Democrats putting racists and segregationists on their tickets all three times.

The only clear-cut segregationist the Democrats put on the ticket was John Sparkman in 1952.  Estes Kefauver refused to sign the Southern Manifesto.  LBJ, whatever his private views, did support and floor manage the Civil Rights bill of 1957.

The defections of Gov. Allan Shivers (D-TX) and Robert Kennon (D-LA) to support Eisenhower was due to issues of control of tidelands oil, but Kennon was a 1948 Dixiecrat.  Sen. Harry Byrd (D-VA) instituted his Golden Silence in no small part because of the National Democratic Party's support for civil rights as part of their platform beginning in 1948.  Southern conservative racists saw that the accomodation they had with Northern Democratic liberals on race was done, and they began making plans.  Some of the shift in the South was due to the economic conservatism of Bourbon Democratic Southerners, but much of it was due to conservative Democrats recognizing the position that the NATIONAL Democratic party was taking on civil rights.

[Communists For McCain]

I REALLY don't think George Wallace would've become a Republican, but not for the reasons that OldiesFreak mentioned.

For one, George Wallace was a very populist politician.  Not only would his pro-segregation stance be at odds with the Republican Party (actually, it would've been at odds with the majority of the Democratic Party as well, as the numbers indicate on the vote by party on the Civil Rights Act.), but so would his economic philosophy.  Republicans, while not outright laissez faire in the 1960's, were at least considerably more pro-business in rhetoric than what Wallace would've felt comfortable with.  At least as a Democrat he would retain his populist visage by sticking with the "little guy's party", something that he wouldn't have as a Southern Republican (who were mostly seen as rich oilmen at the time).

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I REALLY don't think George Wallace would've become a Republican, but not for the reasons that OldiesFreak mentioned.

For one, George Wallace was a very populist politician.  Not only would his pro-segregation stance be at odds with the Republican Party (actually, it would've been at odds with the majority of the Democratic Party as well, as the numbers indicate on the vote by party on the Civil Rights Act.), but so would his economic philosophy.  Republicans, while not outright laissez faire in the 1960's, were at least considerably more pro-business in rhetoric than what Wallace would've felt comfortable with.  At least as a Democrat he would retain his populist visage by sticking with the "little guy's party", something that he wouldn't have as a Southern Republican (who were mostly seen as rich oilmen at the time).

Agreed.  Although most Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, they did so in smaller percentages than the Republicans did.