Wallace: What Else Could He Do?

Late one night in 1974, George Corley Wallace mused in his mansion about whether he should seek re-election as Governor of Alabama. A reporter turned to the perennial candidate, paralyzed from the waist down. Why would he want to suffer through more campaigning? In a rare moment of humility, Wallace answered softly, "If I didn't hold office, how could I live? You know I don't have any money. What could I do?"

Two years later, TIME Atlanta Bureau Chief James Bell pursued the same subject in a personal chat, asking: "Why not go back to practicing law and make a bundle like Tom Dewey and Richard Nixon when they were out of office?" Wallace thought for a moment. "Naw, I'm not interested in law, and I guess I wouldn't be much good at it any more." Well, why not run for aging John Sparkman's Alabama Senate seat in 1978? "Naw, I don't want to go to Washington to sit in the Senate." Surely there must be something he could do. "Maybe write some. Think I could write some?" Somewhat kindly, the reporter did not suggest that words tumble far more effectively from Wallace's mouth than from his little-used pen.

Wallace, of course, by then had run for reelection, winning a term that will not expire until 1979. If he completes it, he will have spent 26 years in public office (counting two years when his late wife Lurleen was Governor). Yet the question of why Wallace keeps running was being asked even more pointedly last week, since his fourth race for the presidency was doomed to futility. Wallace insisted after losing to Jimmy Carter in Illinois: "No sir, I'm not thinking of quitting."

But the pouty lips conveyed a resurgent bitterness last week. There was an air of anger about him and dissension among his campaign aides. At the start of the 1976 campaign, he had seemed to be a gentle George Wallace. He refrained from attacking his critics and sang his populist song of cheering up the embattled middle class without the old undertones of racism and class hatred. But it had not worked. His railings against Washington bureaucrats, wealthy tax chiselers and crime in the streets had become respectable--but were being pre-empted by more respectable candidates. Carter asked Southern audiences: "Why send a message when you can send a President?" Wallace, who knows but will never admit that he cannot reach the Oval Office, began to lash out with some of his old meanness.

In North Carolina he damned Carter as "a liar" for not supporting him at the 1972 Democratic Convention after promising to do so--a pledge that Carter convincingly denies ever making. In the manner of Joseph McCarthy's tactics, Wallace said that there were "between 75 and 100 people who worked for McGovern," including a "card-carrying McGovern liberal," in Carter's camp. But he only named three (Fund Raiser Morris Dees, Pollster Pat Codell and Illinois Chairman of the Carter Campaign James Wall).

Wallace has been unable to squelch the doubts about his health. Plaintively, he declared in Durham, N.C.: "I'm glad I'm alive. God has been good to me. I don't want anyone to vote for me because I'm in a wheelchair. But I also don't want anyone to vote against me because of it." Then he added, more belligerently: "I'm just paralyzed in the legs. Some of these other fellows are paralyzed in the head."

But why does he push on? Never a captive of logic, Wallace argues on the one hand that his opponents have now come around to agreeing with him on the issues he sees as crucial--which would seem to be a reason to drop out with satisfaction. But he also contends that if he were to quit, all the others would suddenly revert to their old ways--which would only please "superrich hypocrites" and "welfare rip-offers." He says he wants to influence the party platform, as though such platforms mean much. Clearly, he wants enough delegates to affect the selection of the nominee and to earn respect at the convention. Pride is a big thing with Wallace. Yet further humiliation in primary elections could be even more devastating to his ego.

Cornelia Wallace seems to share the spreading despair and defeatism in her husband's camp. Once gregarious and sparkling in public appearances, she now sits glumly, often unsmiling when George offers his crowd-warming jokes. She has heard them all so often--and so too have the voters. Wallace's basic pitch has not changed in 12 years. "I've always called politics the 'king of sports,' " Cornelia writes in her recent autobiography C'Nelia. "I was born to it, I lived it all my life and I've loved every minute of it. Yet now I find I've lost my enthusiasm for the campaign."

Losing repeatedly can, of course, aggravate that feeling. But Correspondent Bell believes that Wallace will go on running because he has nothing better to do. He dislikes the technicalities of ad ministration, as required of a Governor or President, but loves the limelight and seeks a forum for his views. Thus it seems a good bet that, whatever happens this year, Wallace will indeed run for the Senate in 1978 and carry on the last of the Huey Long-style traditions of Southern demagoguery, while Cornelia shines as a Washington hostess. But isn't George cool to that prospect? Says Cornelia: "Maybe, when he sees that he's going to be out of office, he'll change his mind." Others might well ask: "If he's going to settle for that later,' why not now?"

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