The Wallace Factor in 2012

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This morning I listened to some astute political observers discussing the presidential prospects of former Utah governor Jon Huntsman. The buzz largely came down to why he has not connected with potential Republican primary voters so far and whether he still could.

The answer I believe lies in history and the candidacy of former Alabama Governor George Wallace, who ran for president in 1968 as an Independent. Four years earlier, Barry Goldwater began the process of prying the Solid South away from the Democratic coalition formed by Franklin Roosevelt. These ‘Dixiecrats’ had splintered during the election of  1948 but largely returned to the fold the following year. By 1968 enough were moving away to support the third party candidacy of the one time segregationist.

Wallace was a master at handling his supporters. Like Newt Gingrich, he would not resist throwing ‘red meat’ into crowds who were hungry for preserving old ways and ‘basic’ values. He told them “there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference” between Hubert Humphrey the Democratic Vice President and Republican Richard Nixon. He also got a lot of mileage out of criticizing “pointy-headed intellectuals” who were fouling up the country with their radical ideas like racial equality and ending the War in Viet Nam. He had contempt as well for East Coast city swells in three-piece suits with their lofty ideas.

Humphrey, a one-time college professor from Minneapolis, and Nixon who was notoriously stiff and uncomfortable in public, could not connect with this constituency the way Wallace did. And he was good theater. Only an aborted assassination attempt derailed his presidential ambitions. He watched the close election results from a wheelchair in November. No one believes Wallace would have won that election, but he definitely tapped into a constituency that had been present for well over a century and turned it into a political force.

In addition to Dixiecrats, Wallace appealed to the anti-intellectual, anti-education streak in American culture that feared change and those who might propose it. In 1856, former president Millard Fillmore ran as the candidate of the No-Nothings, an anti-intellectual, anti-Immigrant, anti-Catholic faction of the disintegrating Whig Party. Waves of immigration from Europe seeking jobs had stirred these voters up. Fillmore carried only one state but it was the start of a growing backlash.

This faction came to life again in 1920 helping a nation frustrated with Woodrow Wilson’s presidency and his tireless crusade for the League of Nations elect folksy down-home Warren Harding. They surfaced again in 1928 to vote against the ‘Rum and Romanism’ of New York Governor Al Smith.

In the years following the Nixon election, this faction found a home in the Republican Party. Ronald Reagan was able to communicate with them. George H W Bush could not. Clinton could lure them over to his side, but Al Gore did not and they returned to the Republican column.

As they moved into the Republican Party they quickly purged the Rockefeller-Henry Cabot Lodge East Coast wing of the party. In this new century they have used litmus tests to eliminate moderates as well. They jumped into the Tea Party in 2010 and they are now rallying to the candidacy of Newt Gingrich, who like Wallace knows the kind of ‘red meat’ they want.

Huntsman, the former Ambassador to China who can speak Mandarin fluently does not naturally connect with them. Nor does the stiff, Dewey-like Mitt Romey who also has the problem of not being “Christian-enough’ for this born again constituency. They look foolish trying.

It may be ironic that PhD Gingrich is able to connect with this anti-intellectual  constituency, but like Clinton, he understands their thinking and knows what they want to hear.  Given what is left of the once mighty GOP, these second generation Wallace-ites cannot be ignored. Their numbers inside the Party are simply too large. Ideas will not sway them, personalities and bumper slogans will.

Given this gift of George Wallace to the Republican Party, Huntsman likely will not light up Republican voters in the primary next year. Romney’s problems generating enthusiasm are also easier to understand. And the challenge of snagging the nomination and then scurrying back to the political center to capture the election seem pretty formidable. Those jettisoned erstwhile Republicans are now out there in that Independent center and their votes this year, assuming they do vote, are very much up for grabs.

The Wallace legacy lives on.

Tom Godfrey

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