Posted on 05/15/2022 11:12:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
Fifty years ago, Joe Biden was running for the U.S. Senate, Jimmy Carter was governor of Georgia, Ronald Reagan was governor of California, George H. Bush was swimming uphill in still Democrat Texas, Gerald Ford was the House minority leader, and President Nixon was promoting his foreign policy credentials and wondering whom he'd run against.
Then the stuff hit the fan. On this day in 1972, George Wallace was shot during a campaign rally in Maryland. It was a shocker!
Wallace will always be remembered as the man who may have made the Nixon presidency possible. We don't know for sure, but many of those Southern states (46 electoral votes) would have probably voted for V.P. Humphrey, as Texas did in 1968. Who knows what other states outside the South would have gone to Humphrey without Wallace?
The final 1968 Electoral College vote was Nixon 301, Humphrey 191, and Wallace 46. The popular vote was also very close: Nixon 43%, Humphrey 42%, and Wallace 14%.
In 1972, Wallace was running on the same themes but inside the Democrat party. I don't think he would have won the nomination, but he could have forced the party to nominate a more centrist candidate, such as a rerun of Vice President Humphrey or Senator Scoop Jackson of Washington. A Jackson or Humphrey would have made it more difficult for President Nixon. He would not have run against a liberal like George McGovern or carried 49 states.
So the man shot fifty years ago had a lot to do with Nixon winning in 1968 and a landslide re-election in 1972.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
People forget about Wallace surviving an assassination attempt which ended his ‘72 presidential campaign. He was in critical condition in the hospital when this Southern governor won in Michigan and Maryland. Pat Buchanan noted that Nixon was never really popular and they spent his first term fearing that he would not be reelected. Shooting Wallace ensured that Nixon got reelected, and won big.
He definitely struck a raw nerve. Think Perot. Trump even. Perot was certifiably a head case and Wallace couldn’t shake the racism charges. Then there’s Buchannan(Pat). All those slurs and charges could not stick to Trump.
Was Lt. Dan a convincing George Wallace?
click for bbq picture wallace, bush clinton:
Wallace dropping out was the reason I ended up voting for Nixon...again.
McGovern was a godsend to Nixon, And when Eagleton withdrew as VP nominee, when it was found he had electric shock treatments, that sealed the election for Nixon.
I remember it well. My 18th birthday.
I read a doctoral thesis that charted the political goals of at least a dozen assassins and none of them achieved their political goals with the assassination. Politics is too chaotic for something as simple as an assassination to be the solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-q7R_WaKTQ&ab_channel=MyFootage.com
Up close footage of the assassination attempt.
Arthur Bremer, the man who shot Wallace, now 71, was released from prison in 2007 but continues to be on parole until 2025. His preferred target was Richard Nixon.
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