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There have been other changes in Wallace the campaigner. The man who once declared that he would "out-nigger" anybody on the stump, whose most durable public image was blocking the schoolhouse door to blacks, seldom lets a racist tinge color his rhetoric these days. The shift is partly a response to the more moderate temper of the times in the South, partly a reflection of the fact that he no longer needs to. George Wallace has become his own code word; his people know where he stands, and his country style permits infinite shadings of nuance and allusion. Today he could never give his "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever" speech of 1962. "That inaugural speech was given in the context of the times. The people of the South have adjusted to the law." His new rhetoric even permits of praise for his black opponent, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm: "I like people who stick to their guns, even if I don't agree with them."
Debate. The still feisty but less abrasive style turned out to be highly effective in Florida. So did his provocative anti-Establishment slogan, "Send them a message." Wallace's polls had given him some 32% of the vote; privately he hoped to do as well as 35%, about as much as any outside analyst conceded him. When an aide told him that he would carry Miami's Dade County, Wallace berated him for faulty research. As the returns rolled in, Wallace's elation mounted. "The people of Florida sent a message to the national political leaders," he crowed. "We beat the face cards of the Democratic deck. This has been the turning point in American politics. We have turned the Democratic Party around."
More accurately, Wallace turned the party inside out. The Democrat who ran closest to him was Hubert Humphrey, with a mere 18% of the vote. The supposed front runner, Edmund Muskie, did only half as well as Humphrey, finishing fourth after Scoop Jackson (13%). In a brooding, bitter election-night speech, Muskie said of Wallace: "I hate what he stands for. The man is a demagogue of the worst kind. This election result in Florida reveals to a greater extent than I had imagined some of the worst instincts of which human beings are capable."
The speech touched off instant debate. Some thought it was Muskie's finest hour of the 1972 campaign, producing the combative eloquence that his efforts have badly needed. Others argued that it was naive and possibly fatal to lump all Wallace's voters under a racist rubric. Primary votes are often protest votes, and there may be millions of Americans, including a good many Floridians, who share none of Wallace's residual racism but do keenly feel the sense of alienation from the system that his little-man populism plays to. That note was sounded by George McGovern: "No matter how we slice it, today was a setback for those who believe deeply in the cause of human rights. But I cannot accept the fact that the 40% of the vote that went to George Wallace was a racist vote. Many people voted for Wallace to register their protest against the way things are."