How did George Wallace win the 1972 Michigan Democratic Primary in a Landslide?

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

He won (A) because of divided opposition, and (B) he was foresquare against school busing across district lines to achieve racial integration in a year where many parents in suburban Detroit faced the possibility of their children being bussed to inner city schools to achieve racial balances mandated by court orders.  The Detroit suburbs, and Detroit's white ethnic neighborhoods, were all nominally Democratic, but were socially conservative, and did not want their children bussed long distances to attend schools with large percentages of minority students.  These parents had fled the inner city, had sacrificed financially to ensure that their children would attend schools they believed to be quality and safe, and Wallace was the only Democrat who stood against a Court ordering children to be bussed long distances for racial integration.

The busing issue is the issue that kept Michigan in the GOP Presidential Camp from 1972-88.  Local Democrats opposed busing, but the National Democratic Party supported the policy.  The issue was at it's hottest during the 1972 campaign season, and Wallace got the votes of lots of folks who would never have voted for him if busing was not an issue.