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In large measure, George Wallace is, as Harvard Psychiatrist Robert Coles says (quoting Tolstoy), the product of a "series of accidents, a coming together of various events." The war in Viet Nam is one of the chief accidents, acting as a catalyst for many others. Wallace supporters—like many other voters—cannot comprehend why the U.S. cannot whip the North Vietnamese, and they feel aggrieved at the burden the war has placed on their pocketbooks.
The war has also contributed to the rise of the New Left, which not only directly helps Wallace with its heckling but has nourished as well the malaise of the nonhip majority. "The New Left holds the majority of society in contempt," says Paul Goodman, once a radical youth hero. "They are concerned with their own gut issues, but they pay no attention to the majority's gut issues. And this rouses fear and anxiety on the part of the majority. If the New Left had a program for the majority, Wallace would get only the lunatic fringe."
Other "accidents" are Lyndon Johnson, who has raised a crisis of confidence that causes many of his countrymen to distrust their Government, and Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon, whom many voters regard as products of an unresponsive party sys tem. The final accident may have been the murder of Robert Kennedy. Though he stood 180° apart from Wallace on issues—it is hard indeed to imagine two men more diametrically opposed—Kennedy gave many current Wallace adherents the same feeling of strength, honesty and plain pugnaciousness that Wallace does. "Bobby went to faceless people and talked to them and made them feel that they had a champion leading their cause against an entrenched Establishment," observes David Carley, a liberal leader from Wisconsin. "Without his positive program, they're quite willing to turn around now and vote their doubts and frustrations and fears. Wallace is just the leader for that."
Where Will Wallace Go?
In the course of more than 150 interviews with Wallace supporters across the country, TIME correspondents discovered that many would have voted for Kennedy before Wallace. To a lesser, though still significant degree, many others said that they would have preferred Eugene McCarthy to Wallace.
Important as next month's vote is, far more important is what happens to the movement in the future. Traditionally, the two-party system in America has been so strong and capacious that third parties could be absorbed into one of the two major parties. Abraham Lincoln might not have been elected President in 1860 if a large number of Know-Nothings had not been taken into the new Republican Party. Much of the Populist program, which included the graduated income tax, eventually was enacted by the Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson Administrations.
The same fate could overtake the American Independent Party. It is debatable whether Wallace could field the candidates for Congress, the statehouses and the courthouses who could form a major party. (A number of Southern officeholders might, however, leave the other parties for the A.I.P.) The war, too,