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Many politicians in other states are deeply concerned about the Wallace threat. U.A.W. President Leonard Woodcock, a Muskie supporter, said that Wallace might well win in the Michigan primary on May 16. "It's very depressing, and I'm usually an optimist," he admitted. In Wisconsin, where labor leaders launched a campaign that held Wallace to 7.6% of the presidential vote in 1968, they were getting ready to go at him again. "We are running scared about the Wallace thing," conceded COPE's Ken Germanson. In Indiana, Democratic State Chairman Gordon St. Angelo is so fearful that Wallace may win that he asked the other Democratic candidates to throw their support to one of their number in order to stop Wallace. Lindsay, Jackson and McGovern expressed interest, but neither Muskie nor Humphrey was ready to withdraw in favor of the other.
Democratic leaders in Maryland see Humphrey and Wallace as current favorites there—and award Wallace a solid chance to win the primary on May 16. Busing is a hot issue in parts of Massachusetts, giving Wallace a chance to grab votes, probably from Muskie, in the Boston area on April 25. Wallace, of course, will be strong all through the South. Both his home state of Alabama and North Carolina have upcoming primaries. In Border state Tennessee, where Wallace got 34% of the 1968 presidential vote, he is a strong favorite to win the May 4 primary.
As Richard Nixon surveys the divisions in the Democratic Party and observes his likely Democratic opponents getting chewed up, the President is probably pleased. Yet he has to worry about the potential third-party threat as Wallace shows strength. Besides, Wallace's victory has other ominous meanings. The two primaries have demonstrated the high cost and frequent irrelevance of the cumbersome process by which the U.S. selects its candidates for President. The Wallace victory reveals that a man possessing few qualifications for the high office—and virtually no chance for his party's nomination—can seriously harm and endanger candidates with a solid potential for national leadership.
The Wallace performance in Florida, coupled with President Nixon's own near-demagogy on busing, presents the depressing possibility that the presidential politics of 1972 may be conducted at a dismally low level of discourse. That is the level on which the simplistic Wallace functions best. The lesson offered by Wallace is clear enough: When voters are distressed, either the more orthodox candidates must find convincing ways to attack the causes, or George Corley Wallace will continue to win votes and clobber politicians who "can't park their bicycles straight."