Enigma in the South

The office door in Montgomery says only: WALLACE CAMPAIGN. Campaign for what? George Wallace leaves no doubt. Whether in New Hampshire or under the kindlier shadow of Jefferson Davis' statue in his home state capital, Alabama's de facto Governor is convinced that his all-but-declared thirdparty presidential candidacy can decisively affect the outcome of the '68 election.

It could indeed--if not exactly in the way that the ex-boxer from Barbour County anticipates. As a self-declared Populist, Wallace has a slick, simplistic charisma. He appeals to Southerners--and some Northerners as well--who are anti-L.B.J., anti-Big Government, anti-high taxes, anti-intellectual and anti-civil rights. Yet, for all his hopes of hurting the incumbent Democratic Administration, Wallace's campaign next year will in all probability boost Lyndon Johnson's prospects of reelection.

While the G.O.P. has realistic hopes of winning the presidency with an attractive moderate as its candidate, it cannot hope to carry the South unless its nominee is sufficiently conservative to neutralize Wallace's appeal. Former Vice President Richard Nixon has a considerable Southern following, but Ronald Reagan is probably the only Republican capable of consolidating his party's arduous--and still tenuous--risorgimento in Dixie.

Playing John Alden. "It would be a disaster to the Republican Party," Barry Goldwater has said of the Wallace candidacy. Opinion polls confirm this judgment. Thus when Michigan's George Romney ventured South last week, he made Wallace rather than the national Democrats his principal target. A third party bid, said Romney, would be a "tragedy."

One of the big questions for '68 is how many Southern states Wallace might carry. In 1948, with a lower threshold of racial tension in the South and a campaign style considerably less zestful than Wallace's, Senator Strom Thurmond captured four states and 39 electoral votes for the Dixiecrats, posing a real threat to Harry Truman. Mindful of the defections to Thurmond, Vice President Hubert Humphrey has for months been playing Johnson's John Alden to Southern Democratic Gov ernors--most recently and notably with Georgia's Lester Maddox--to preclude any repetition of 1948 or, for that matter, of 1964. So far, Lurleen is the only Southern Governor openly wedded to Wallace. As Virginia's Mills Godwin puts it: "I see no evidence that his methods or his candidacy offer a really effective means of protest."

The Spoiler. Less sophisticated folk, North and South, are not so likely to be concerned about the effectiveness of a protest vote for Wallace. He has every hope of carrying Alabama and Mississippi. He could take Louisiana and Georgia as well, and might make a strong showing in South Carolina. All five of these states went Republican in 1964, and might be expected to do so again in normal circumstances.

The biggest imponderable--apart from the enigma of Wallace--is the extent to which Southern voting patterns will be affected by the region's fast-changing social, economic and political structure. In both parties there have been some encouraging signs of moderation and modernization, but the turmoil that Wallace is capable of fomenting could destroy this progress. The self-described "spoiler" could also delay the Southern Negro's entry into mainstream politics. By 1968, Negro voter registration in the eleven states of the old Confederacy may exceed 3,250,000, more than double the 1960 figure. Though the actual impact of this potential vote remains to be seen, a third-party bid could keep many Southern Negroes at home on Election Day by stimulating K.K.K.-type intimidation, or encourage them to vote for extremist black parties. In any event, a Wallace campaign seems certain to exacerbate racial friction wherever he is a candidate.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.