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Briefcases in the Potomac. Many Wallace followers are well dressed, well housed and relatively well educated. Though racism is the heart of Wallace's appeal, he also touches a responsive chord with almost anyone who, for one reason or another, is unhappy with the way things are. While the New Left claims protest as its own, the little Alabamian has turned dissent into a potentially explosive political force of the New Right. Bureaucrats have 'never been popular; Wallace pledges to throw "their briefcases into the Potomac." If a left-wing protester ever lies down in front of his car when he is President, it will be the last time that dissenter "ever lays down" in front of a car, says Wallace.
The emphasis is on the negative. Dissent will be curbed; foreign aid ("money down a rathole") will be trimmed to pennies. There is no credibility gap with Wallace. Everyone knows what he is against. But in a grotesque way, Wallace's pitch is also positive. "Wallace," says Washington Political Analyst Richard Scammon, "is not really preaching revolution. He's calling for a return of those middle-class values that are prized by millions of Americans."
Scaring Somebody. Many of his followers are convinced, despite the cold facts of arithmetic, that Wallace can win. Others realize that he has no hope of presiding over the Government. They are nevertheless determined to support him, if only to show their discontent with the other parties. Says William Tomchuk, a farmer from Belfield, N. Dak.: "Maybe we can help scare somebody else into doing something."
The other candidates have already done something. Wallace, says Edmund Muskie, is a "definite factor" in the campaign equation. Spiro T. Agnew, chosen to help the Republicans with the law-and-order issue in the South, owes his nomination almost as much to Wallace as to Nixon. The whole negative tone of the campaign, with its strong stress on ending dissent, reflects the influence of the former Alabama Governor—though even he would have to give some credit to black extremists and New Left demonstrators. In varying degrees, both Nixon and Humphrey have bowed to the Wallace concept of law and order, neglecting the basic problems that bother the nation. Yet neither can hope to out-Wallace Wallace, who, just as he boasts, was the first to sniff political profit in fear and hate.
Until lately, both parties have tended to underestimate him. The Democrats, when they thought about Wallace at all, seemed to think he could hurt only Nixon, who in muted terms is addressing himself to many of Wallace's issues. Some observers believed that Wallace would take away Nixon votes in the South, Humphrey votes in the North. Taken together, it was felt, the losses would cancel each other out.
In fact, no one knows even approximately how many votes Wallace will draw or whom he will hurt more. The feeling—and it is only that—is that Nixon will probably suffer more, if only because he will be forced to split the vote that he could normally claim as the challenger of an unpopular administration. Nixon has already chalked off to Wallace some of the Southern states that he was counting on before August, hopes instead to capture industrial states that were given to the Democrats as recently as July.