Arthur Bremer due to be released

ABC Radio News | 23 Aug 07 | ABC Radio news

[DCPatriot]

When that mall first opened, the ice-cream parlor was called Farrell's.

It was the 1st time I had seen whole staff run around the shop with sirens blaring and bells ringing as they all sang 'Happy Birthday' to the celebrant.

[Dixie Yooper]

Doesn’t the “He needed shootin’” defense apply here?

That only applies in the real south, not Maryland.

[O6ret]

I would agree with the release only on the condition that spend the rest of his life in a wheel chair.

[JimRed]

His purpose was to "prove his manhood", not to take Wallace out of the campaign.

So, no "thank you" luncheon from the NAA(L)CP?

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

I never realized how many specific plot elements of “Taxi Driver” were taken from the Bremer story.

[mkjessup]

Actually, that’s right. George Wallace ran for President in 1968 for the American Independent Party, retired General Curtis LeMay WAS his running mate, and they carried enough of the South to deny Hubert Humphrey an electoral win against the GOP ticket of Nixon/Agnew.

If Wallace had NOT been shot, he would very likely have been the nominee for the Democrat Party in ‘72 and he certainly would have fared better with the voting public than that traitor-Commie George McGovern.

No telling who Wallace’s running mate in ‘72 might have been, if he had become the nominee.

[mkjessup]

Doesn’t the “He needed shootin’” defense apply here?

Only if one is truly ignorant of what George Wallace really stood for. If he were alive today, he would probably be a Freeper in good standing.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Some good insight, Wallace. It was the beginning of the transition of southern conservatives into the GOP.

[mkjessup]

Ohio Congressman John Ashcroft even staged a quixotic challenge to Nixon in the Republican primaries

I believe that was John Ashbrook.

[RetSignman]

They should have waited until after the elections in ‘08, this gives him a whole year to decide who he wants to assassinate.

[colorado tanker]

This guy was a sociopath, for sure. I wonder if he got any treatment in prison? Kinda scary that they’ll be dumping him out on the street.

[ohioman]

“Sweet Home Alabama” ....

What a great song!

[Graybeard58]

Actually, that’s right.

I remember. I corrected myself 2 or 3 times. Off my meds, you know.

At age 23 that was the first time I was eligible to vote in a presidential election. I voted for Nixon and have voted "R" ever since.

[Wallace T.]

If Wallace had won the Democrat nomination in 1972, it would have been as ground shifting as when William Jennings Bryan won it in 1896. In 1896 and 1900, Northeastern and Great Lakes Democrats deserted their party in great numbers, with William McKinley making considerable gains among normally Democrat leaning immigrants, whose factory and mine employment was dependent upon maintenance of high tariff barriers. Bryan, who represented the agrarian interests of the South and West, favored lower tariffs. Big city Democratic political machines such as New York's Tammany Hall were at best lukewarm to Bryan. Democrats of the Grover Cleveland type, who favored a gold standard and limited government, deserted their party for the more conservative McKinley. As a result, McKinley beat Bryant twice.

As for 1972, Wallace would have been regarded with hostility by the Democrat big city political machines and the labor unions. Black, Jewish, and Hispanic voters would have deserted their party’s standard bearer in unprecedented numbers. There may well have developed a third party on the Left, given an unpalatable (to them) choice between Nixon and Wallace. Such a third party could well have carried New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and a few other states, and perhaps thrown the election into the House of Representatives.

[Ciexyz]

I remember that era and the event as reported on the news at that time, yet it was still shocking to re-read the details. Thanks for posting.

[ConservativeDude]

Ohio Congressman John Ashcroft”

Ashbrook, I believe?

[ConservativeDude]

Great posts, by the way.

I like to fantasize about the idea of a Democrat party in the image of Wallace, and the left only being represented by a splinter third party.....

[mkjessup]

There may well have developed a third party on the Left, given an unpalatable (to them) choice between Nixon and Wallace. Such a third party could well have carried New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and a few other states, and perhaps thrown the election into the House of Representatives.

As I recall, that was Wallace's original gambit in '68, because even he knew that it was unlikely that he could capture a majority of electoral votes, and his objective was to throw the election into the House where his electors would have enough clout to affect the outcome. I remember an interview with Wallace in which this was discussed, the reporter (probably one of those 'pointy-headed sway-doe intellectuals' Wallace railed against) said "so you're looking to make a deal in the House of Representatives then?" and Wallace answered, "no, we're looking for a sacred covenant" (presumably something to limit policies on forced immigration via school bus roulette, liberal social policies, a pro-victory position for Vietnam, etc.).

[Wallace T.]

Had Wallace not been shot, he likely would have won a greater percentage of the popular vote in 1972 than he did in 1968, when he received about 13%. You must remember that in 1972, conservative dissatisfaction with Nixon was as high as it is against the present incumbent, who of course is a lame duck. Nixon strayed further from conservative orthodoxy than George W. Bush has, and with Wallace offering a populist, social conservative alternative to the antiwar liberal McGovern, there would have been substantial defection to the Alabama governor. Add in white Southerners and white union members in the Rust Belt and the Eastern Seaboard, and it is quite likely that Wallace would have gotten at least 20% of the national vote, slightly better than Ross Perot's 1992 showing. Wallace may well have won states beyond the Deep South, like Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The rest of the map would have been hard to predict. Conservative defections to Wallace might have put solidly Republican states like Kansas and Indiana in play. Large defections to Wallace among blue collar Democrats could well have had a reverse effect in normally Democrat-leaning New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Had Wallace achieved a deadlock in the Electoral College, he could have well struck a deal not unlike that of 1876, where Democrat supporters of Samuel Tilden in the South switched their vote to the Republican Rutherford Hayes in exchange for the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South, thus ending Reconstruction and re-establishing white majority rule in the secessionist states. Had Wallace insisted on court packing to increase the Supreme Court to 15 justices, with the six appointees to be strict constructionists, Roe v. Wade (already decided during the 1972 election, and the opinion issued in January 1973) would have been overturned, and school busing for integration would have ended. Other liberal Warren Court decisions, like "one man, one vote", Miranda, and banning of public school prayer, would have been overturned.

Any such possibility ended in a shopping center in Maryland because of the act of a demented man, Arthur Bremer.

[mkjessup]

Which begs the question, was Arthur Bremer truly demented, or did he just know how to keep his mouth shut for over 3 decades after a substantial deposit was perhaps made to a numbered Swiss bank account, earning interest all these years?

Yes, I know - sheer speculation without substantiation, but it’s like another Freeper’s tag line that says something to the effect of ‘six shots fired into John Lennon, but none hit Yoko or even come close’.

Coincidence, of course.