Out of the Bottle

THIRD PARTIES

With his pouty lips, upswept pompadour and downswept jowls, he bore scant resemblance to the lissome heroine of NBC's comedy I Dream of Jeannie. Yet sure enough, there was George Wallace in living color at Jeannie's usual time, dispensing his own brand of sugar-sweet demagoguery in his first nationwide TV appeal. For all the contrast, the substitution of George for Jeannie was bizarrely apt. For like the star of the show--a genie--Wallace is a specter that both major parties would prefer to see back in the bottle.

Even before the campaign officially began, Wallace received close to 20% of the popular vote in both of the major polls. In the South, the Gallup poll gave him a full 36%, more than either Richard Nixon or Hubert Humphrey. If crowd reactions are any indication, the disorders in Chicago have only strengthened his repressive "law and order" theme. "The other two national parties," he said on television last week, "are panic-stricken because they realize that they can no longer hoodwink the American people. They have stayed in power this long only because there was no other choice."

Denouncing the "overeducated, ivory-tower folks with pointed heads looking down their noses at us" --a Wallaceism denoting anybody who is in favor of civil rights, plus all three branches of the U.S. Government -- the Alabamian is taking his Know-Nothing brand of politics to every part of the country.

Half-hour tapes are running regularly on 30 or more stations and, in addition to last week's NBC telecast (cost: $250,000), the Wallace camp has bought an other half-hour for national showing on ABC this week. Money seems to be no serious problem. Though the figures are secret, one estimate places contributions at $40,000 a day. Featuring a special pitch for funds at the end of each show, the television broadcasts even pay for themselves.

Excitement, not Votes. Despite the waves Wallace is raising, Nixon, for one, thinks that his third-party campaign has peaked and will soon start downhill. In company with leaders from both parties, the Republican nominee believes that when it comes to voting, most of the people who now say they are for Wallace will stay with the major parties. Wallace's pull, adds Lawyer Charles Rhyne, a top Nixon strategist, is "in the excitement he can stir up, not in the votes he can move."

Though he is already on the ballot in 46 states, the ex-Governor will need more than a magic bottle to win. But he is still stirring up enough excitement to worry both Republicans and Democrats, with neither party sure which one he will damage more. At this point, it appears as though he will draw support from Nixon in the South and take away Humphrey voters in the North, where many Democratic blue-collar workers may switch to Wallace's American Independent Party.

Wallace, who took a few days off last week to recharge his batteries in Miami Beach, has, in the meantime, never been so happy knocking the "pointed heads." He loses no opportunity to sneer at "pseudo-intellectuals" and the "leftwing liberal press." ("There are more of us than there are of them.") This week he will take his campaign to Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri, stopping off in Washington, D.C., to announce his choice for a vice-presidential running mate. The man most frequently mentioned: the irrepressible A. B. ("Happy") Chandler, 70, former Kentucky Governor (1935-39 and 1955-59) and Senator (1939-45) and onetime commissioner of baseball (1945-51).

Supporters of a fourth, peace party were having trouble even finding a candidate. Eugene McCarthy has given no encouragement to a fourth-party presidential bid, and last week asked that his name be withdrawn from the ballot in Iowa, Indiana and Montana.

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