George Wallace

George Corley Wallace (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who was elected Governor of Alabama (as a Democrat) four times (1962, 1970, 1974 and 1982) and ran for U.S. President (in 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976). His first wife, Lurleen Wallace, was the first (and, as of 2005, only) woman to ever be elected as Governor of Alabama.

Second term as Governor

In 1970 he was elected governor of Alabama for a second term. In an effort to weaken the prospects of another presidential campaign in 1972, President Nixon had backed the incumbent governor Albert Brewer in the Democratic primary, while at the same time arranging an IRS investigation of possible illegalities in the Wallace campaign. A Gallup poll at the time showed Wallace to be the seventh most admired man in America, just ahead of Pope Paul VI.

Related Topics:
IRS - Pope Paul VI

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In early 1972 he once again declared himself a candidate for president, this time as a Democrat. When running in Florida against the liberal George McGovern, 1968 nominee Hubert H. Humphrey, and nine other Democratic opponents, Wallace won forty-two percent of the vote, carrying every county in the state.

Related Topics:
Florida - George McGovern - Hubert H. Humphrey - County

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While campaigning in Laurel, Maryland in May 1972, Wallace was shot four times by a would-be assassin named Arthur Herman Bremer. Three other people were wounded in the shooting; all survived. Bremer's diary, published after his arrest as An Assassin's Diary, showed that Bremer's assassination attempt was not motivated by politics, but by a desire to become famous, and that President Nixon had also been a possible target. The assassination attempt left Wallace paralyzed, as one of the bullets that hit him had lodged in his spinal column.

Related Topics:
Laurel, Maryland - Arthur Herman Bremer - An Assassin's Diary - Assassination - Politics - Famous - Paralyzed - Spinal column

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Following the shooting, Wallace won primaries in Maryland, Michigan, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Wallace spoke at the Democratic National Convention from his wheelchair in Miami in the summer of 1972. The eventual Democratic nominee, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota would go on to be defeated by President Nixon in an overwhelming landslide, with Nixon carrying 49 of the 50 states.

Related Topics:
Maryland - Michigan - Tennessee - North Carolina - Miami - Senator - George McGovern - South Dakota

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While Wallace was recovering in a Maryland hospital, he was out of the state for more than 20 days, so the state constitution required the lieutenant governor, Jere Beasley, to serve as acting governor from June 5 until Wallace returned to Alabama on July 7.

Related Topics:
State constitution - Lieutenant governor - Jere Beasley - Acting governor - June 5 - July 7

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In November, 1975 Wallace announced his fourth and final bid for the presidency. The following campaign was plagued by voters' concerns with his health problems, as well as the media's constant use of images of his apparent "helplessness", which his supporters complained was politically motivated by bias against him, citing the discretion used by some of the same organizations in coverage, or rather the lack of coverage, of the paralysis of Franklin Delano Roosevelt three decades earlier. After losing several Southern primaries to former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, Wallace dropped out of the race in June, 1976, eventually endorsing Carter while boasting that he had made it possible for a Southerner to be nominated for president.

Related Topics:
1975 - Media - Franklin Delano Roosevelt - Georgia - Jimmy Carter

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