And Then There Were Ten

King maker or mischief maker?

Democrats uneasily pondered that question last week as George Corley Wallace, 56, announced that for the fourth time since 1964, he was a candidate for President. He is the tenth Democrat to declare. Although he is paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair as a result of the 1972 attempt on his life, Wallace seemed determined to prove he is as salty and vigorous as ever. Appearing on a banner-draped platform at a motel in Montgomery, Ala., he threw away an eleven-page prepared speech and winged it. He was running, he said, to save the great American middle class--"the steel," as he put it, that holds the country together --from the excesses of liberals and Big Government. "You have the chance to take back this country from the ultraliberals, who have brought us to this mess."

It sounded like vintage Wallace, but the fact is the feisty Alabamian is working hard to overhaul his image. Earlier in the week he vowed that 1976 "will be my last campaign"--unless, of course, he is campaigning for re-election to the presidency in 1980, an eventuality that strikes everybody but Wallace and his staunchest supporters as inconceivable. Accordingly, Wallace is modifying his style and some--but by no means all --of his themes.

Providing Answers. The "new" Wallace, for example, has erased racial invective from his rhetoric. The man who ran for Governor of Alabama in 1962 on a platform of "segregation now --segregation forever" goes out of his way these days to profess his regard for blacks and all other groups. He never meant to attack a particular race, he insists; his enemy all along was oppressive bureaucracy. In response to charges that he exploits tensions but offers no solutions, Wallace and Joe Azbell, his director of communications, promise a different sort of campaign. "We're no longer going to be simplistic," says Azbell. "We're going to provide answers for the problems of America, not just harp on the problems themselves. We're going to do things the Wallace way, but we'll take ideas wherever we can find them. We read books by Adlai Stevenson, Eugene McCarthy, Richard Scammon [the political analyst], Khrushchev and Nixon."

As an example of the new problem-solving Wallace, Azbell cites the Governor's position on New York City. During his Montgomery announcement, Wallace criticized New York as a "prime example of what the ultra-liberals can do to a city." But he indicated that he would not oppose some kind of federal assistance, partly because default would have wide-ranging economic consequences. He also attacked the United Nations resolution condemning Zionism as racist (see THE WORLD). "We told you years ago that the U.N. was a no-'count outfit," he said.

Will the more moderate, if still pungent Wallace have as much appeal as the old one? The issues this election year may not be going his way. Wherever the busing controversy flares up, he is helped. But the recession, the energy crisis, detente and the Middle East require more complex responses than Wallace is used to giving. His attacks on bureaucracy are popular, but then there is scarcely a presidential candidate who is not playing the same theme.

His record as Governor is not going to dazzle many voters. Preoccupied with his national ambitions, he has neglected state affairs. While Wallace has procrastinated, U.S. District Judge Frank Johnson has stepped in to order revisions of legislative voting districts and property-tax assessments; he has also directed changes in the state prisons and mental hospitals.

The Governor's health is certain to be an issue. After four major operations and several minor ones, he tires more easily than before, and he will obviously not be able to campaign with all of his former stamina. But Wallace insists that the press has exaggerated his ailments. "I've submitted to the best doctors in the country," he says. "It's an insult to question them." And they have pronounced him fit to run for President. Wallace says he is willing to undergo an independent medical examination if the other candidates do the same. "I'm not going to be the only one."

Wallace has raised more money --$5.3 million--than any of his rivals, and he is much better organized than in previous presidential tries. His operatives are largely ignoring the states where Democratic delegates are chosen in caucuses or conventions. Instead, they are concentrating on 24 primary states, North and South. In the 1972 campaign, Wallace won primary victories in Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Maryland and Michigan, and he placed second in several others.

Leading Candidate. The first primary he enters will be Massachusetts' on March 2. Ordinarily, he would not be given much of a chance in the only state George McGovern carried in 1972, but the busing controversy plays into his outstretched hands. A week later he will be on the ballot in Florida, where he won handily in 1972. This time he will face serious opposition from former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, who has been organizing and campaigning in the state for almost a year. Wallace is still expected to win, but by a reduced margin. If Carter significantly trims his lead, the Alabamian would be badly hurt.

In most polls that exclude Ted Kennedy, Wallace is the leading candidate among Democrats and independents, with anywhere from 14% to 25% of the vote; certain polls also indicate that he is disliked by more Democrats than is any of the party's other candidates. He is expected to reach the Democratic convention with as many as 25% to 30% of the delegates, enough to let him throw his weight around--but not to get on the ticket. Of the other announced presidential candidates, only Henry Jackson has suggested a willingness to accept Wallace as a running mate "if he were the choice of the convention."

If the Governor does not get what he wants from the Democrats, he may bolt as he did in 1968 and run once again on a third-party ticket. Which major party would then be hurt the most is hard to tell. Nobody ever quite figured out whether he took more votes away from Nixon or Humphrey in 1968.

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