Was Wallace going to do better than he did?

[RN]

I read that two things hurt Wallace close to the 1968 election- Curtis LeMay in his first press conference as the VP nominee "advocating" nuclear weapons in Vietnam, and the labor Unions spending I THINK 10 million dollars in 1968 money against Wallace and for HHH, not sure what that figure would be like today.   I am suprised Wallace did not carry SC, I guess Strom held the voters in line for Nixon. 

[??????????]

I read that two things hurt Wallace close to the 1968 election- Curtis LeMay in his first press conference as the VP nominee "advocating" nuclear weapons in Vietnam, and the labor Unions spending I THINK 10 million dollars in 1968 money against Wallace and for HHH, not sure what that figure would be like today.   I am suprised Wallace did not carry SC, I guess Strom held the voters in line for Nixon. 

Wallace did very well. He came very very close in the majority of the southern states.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Had the race between Nixon and Humphrey not closed in the final few weeks, Wallace would have done a *lot* better in the North

[Dr. Cynic]

Two factors kept Wallace from being better.

1. HHH's ability to hold the labor vote in line

2. Strom keeping SC out of Wallace's hands

[PBrunsel]

Wallace was running in the low 30's in public opinion polls until he chose General LeMay as his running mate.

[Dr. Cynic]

Yes. He announced his choice in Pittsburgh.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1. HHH's ability to hold the labor vote in line

True. Imagine RFK as the Dem candidate...

[AuH2O]

Well, his best chance was in 1972, before he got shot, if he had been able to win the Democratic nomination. A better '68 effort could have thrown it to the House of course, and that would have been a rollickin good time.

The Southern Democrats presumably would have supported Wallace initially... maybe HHH would have been forced to make Wallace his VP?

[WalterMitty]

humphrey NEVER would have taken wallace as his vp.  he would just as soon lost the presidency before he did something like that.

humphrey spent msot of his life fighting for civil rights.  wallace spent most of his life fighting to keep blacks as second class citizens.  big difference.

[Dr. Cynic]

Walter Mitty is right. HHH took his Civil Rights fight in 1948 against Thurmond at the Democratic convention. He was a big reason Dems adopted Civil Rights reform.

Wallace would have been eliminated from consideration, and the House would have voted between HHH and RMN. HHH would have won because Democrats controlled the House.

[PBrunsel]

This is the exact quote he said the day he was picked as Wallace's Vice President:

"I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that's been fed to them." -- 3 October, 1968

[Gustaf]

Didn't LeMay also say something about nuclear weapons not being that dangerous or something?

[PBrunsel]

Didn't LeMay also say something about nuclear weapons not being that dangerous or something?

Yes, I don't remember the exact quote but he said "pinko scientists" a few times.

[RN]

A good book is the book about Wallace by Dan Carter, there is another that I think Wallace approved and worked with that was published around 1994, IIRC it was called American Populist.  Both have a lot on the LeMay situation.

[alcaeus]

     Any Southerner could have won the Southern states in 1968.   Carter won the Southern states in 1976, only 8 years after Wallace.  In that election Southerners only had to know a governor of Georgia was running.

      Even Clinton managed some success in the South in 1992 by describing himself on the campaign trail there as a "son of the South".

     Texas is a Southern state.   Bush winning against Gore was a Southerner against a Southerner.

     Doing well for a Southern candidate would be to win over the whole country, and only Bush in '88 managed that by having the luck of a campaign against Dukakis.   Bush '00 and '04 is back to where Carter was in '76 as a Southerner campaigning for President mired in neck and neck campaigns unable to convince Northeastern and Midwestern states' voters to give him full support.  His father danced deftly between the two looking at times as much like a candidate from Maine as a candidate from Texas.

     

[??????????]

     Any Southerner could have won the Southern states in 1968.   Carter won the Southern states in 1976, only 8 years after Wallace.  In that election Southerners only had to know a governor of Georgia was running.

      Even Clinton managed some success in the South in 1992 by describing himself on the campaign trail there as a "son of the South".

     Texas is a Southern state.   Bush winning against Gore was a Southerner against a Southerner.

     Doing well for a Southern candidate would be to win over the whole country, and only Bush in '88 managed that by having the luck of a campaign against Dukakis.   Bush '00 and '04 is back to where Carter was in '76 as a Southerner campaigning for President mired in neck and neck campaigns unable to convince Northeastern and Midwestern states' voters to give him full support.  His father danced deftly between the two looking at times as much like a candidate from Maine as a candidate from Texas.

     

Excellent point.