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Wallace wants to make a permanent home in the Democratic Party, which he feels has moved closer to his thinking after the McGovern debacle. "We're back in the party for better or for worse, or, as we say down here, 'ridin' or walkin',' " says Michael Griffin, 25, an energetic Wallace aide. "The Governor is like Minnie Pearl when she says, 'Ah'm jes glad to be here.' Party stalwarts who once denounced Wallace as a bigot are now treating him like a brother. Last July 4, Ted Kennedy appeared with the Governor at a celebration in Decatur, Ala.; in February, Senator Henry Jackson journeyed South, where he said he would be glad to have Wallace on the ticket with him in 1976. The Governor also met with his old foe, AFL-CIO President George Meany, who came away doubting that he would vote for Wallace but acknowledging that the Governor had definitely mellowed.
Wallace is determined not to make the same mistakes he did in 1972. During that campaign, he won 35% of the popular vote in the primaries—more than any other Democratic candidate—but received only 12% of the convention ballots because in many states he neglected to follow party procedures for selecting delegates. His agents are immersed in party maneuvering for 1976, hoping to take advantage of a basic change the Democratic Party has adopted for choosing delegates to the national convention. In the 1976 caucuses and state conventions, any candidate who receives 15% of the vote will be given a proportionate share of delegates; winner no longer will take all. Since Wallace has at least a sprinkling of support in most places, he believes that he will benefit from the rule change. Wallace is also preparing for the Democratic miniconvention to be held in Kansas City in December. He wants to make sure that the Democratic charter to be produced there reflects his views to some extent and is not totally dominated by what he calls the "exotic left."
Wallace's health remains a question mark. Even some supporters wonder whether he could withstand the grueling pace of a presidential campaign. Though he takes no medication, he is in considerable discomfort. "It takes me an hour to do what it used to take me 15 minutes to do," he admits. At the Governor's mansion he exercises daily in a former spare bedroom that resembles a gymnasium. He lifts a 100-lb. weight over his head as many as 80 times a day, then spends as much as an hour standing between parallel bars. "With the help of a walker I can go 150 steps," he told TIME'S Atlanta bureau chief James Bell. "The doctors tell me I'm in excellent shape now except for the paralysis of the legs." His wife Cornelia, 35, likes to goad him by saying that she will make his next speech for him if he is too tired.