George Wallace Jr.: 50th anniversary of George Wallace assassination attempt offers opportunity for reflection
Fifty years ago, on May 15, 1972, I was a student at the University of Alabama and in my Tuscaloosa apartment when a “Special Report” on the television announced that my father, Gov. George C. Wallace, had been shot and critically injured in an assassination attempt on his life. The frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination at the time, Dad had been campaigning in Maryland on the eve of that state’s primary. The Michigan primary was scheduled for the next day, as well, and polling predicted that my father would carry both states by wide margins. It was at a parking lot rally in Laurel, Maryland where Arthur Bremer, a troubled, 21-year-old busboy from Milwaukee, took five fateful shots and wounded my father in the chest and abdomen as he was shaking hands in the crowd. Dad later told me that he was immediately aware his injuries were serious, and when he hit the ground, he purposely turned his head, closed his eyes, and pretended to be dead in hopes that a possible second gunman would choose not to shoot. Despite the chaos surrounding him, he had felt a certain peace and finality come over him as he wrongly assumed his wounds would be fatal. A Secret Service agent had kneeled over him in a protective position, but his drawn gun was dangerously close to Dad’s head. “I wish you wouldn’t point that at me – I have been shot enough for one day,” he told the agent. Bremer’s flurry of gunfire had also resulted in Secret Service agent Nick Zarvos being shot in the neck, Alabama State Trooper E.C. Dothard, a member of the gubernatorial security detail, receiving a graze to the stomach, and Dora Thompson, a campaign volunteer from Hyattsville, Maryland, suffering a knee wound after a bullet ricocheted off of the asphalt. A diary that Bremer kept for months stated his intention to “do something bold and dramatic” and indicated he had originally intended to assassinate President Richard Nixon. Stalking the president on his various travels, Bremer got close enough to take a shot at an economic summit in Ottawa, Canada, but the strong Secret Service presence surrounding the chief executive prompted him to change plans and target my father – the most likely future president – instead. Within minutes of receiving the news, state troopers arrived at my apartment door, whisked me to the airport, and placed me aboard a private jet along with Charlie Snider, the national chairman of the Wallace presidential campaign, press secretary Billy Joe Camp, and a handful of others. We soon arrived at Holy Cross Hospital, where my father had been taken by ambulance and was undergoing five hours of emergency surgery. The attending doctors told us that his already grave injuries were complicated by the fact that just prior to the rally, Dad and his traveling campaign staff had stopped at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant, where he ate his usual lunch of hamburger steak and fries doused in ketchup. The bullets had caused the undigested food to explode within his abdomen, and the lingering peritonitis blood infection and abscesses that followed would almost claim his life. When I walked into the recovery room, my father was still heavily sedated and many of the stitches on his chest and stomach were visible. He reached out with a look I had never seen – one of a man who had been to death’s door and was back among the living, reunited with his family. I have never forgotten that look. It soon became clear that the injuries had paralyzed my father from the waist down, and though we held hope that he would eventually regain use of his legs, those particular prayers were left unanswered. He remained hospitalized at Holy Cross for several weeks as he fought infections and held the continuing specter of death at bay. Once he regained strength, he received visits from notable leaders that included President Nixon, Senator George McGovern, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, and Ethel Kennedy, whose husband, Robert Kennedy, had been killed while campaigning for the presidency in 1968. Cards, letters, telegrams, and flowers flowed into the hospital by the thousands. Upon his release, Dad flew to Miami on a military medical aircraft, which was provided by President Nixon, to appear at the 1972 Democratic National Convention, where McGovern, a committed liberal, would claim the nomination. My father’s forced absence from the campaign trail had allowed his competitor to secure the required delegates. During his convention remarks, Dad warned the Democrats that embracing the extreme left and its ultra-liberal agenda would cost the party the support of the rank-and-file, blue-collar, middle-class families that served as its foundation and doom it to lose the Deep South states in future elections. Like a clairvoyant with a crystal ball, all of the predictions he made those years ago have come true today. As my father spoke, a handful of liberal delegates tried to shout him down, and some marched around the convention hall wearing paper masks depicting Arthur Bremer, which Wallace supporters ripped from their faces. The vast majority, though, gave him a warm reception and appreciated the history of the moment. His mission complete, it was time to return to his beloved Alabama. My father would serve two more terms as governor and run for president a fourth time in 1976, though he lost the nomination to Jimmy Carter, a former Georgia governor who had once been a Wallace supporter. Retirement from public office in 1987 would offer him the opportunity for reflection in his later years, and his relationship with God grew significantly. One of the most enduring and revealing testaments to my father’s deepening faith came in an incredible letter of forgiveness he wrote with no fanfare or public announcement to his assailant, Arthur Bremer, in 1995. A copy of the missive was discovered tucked away in Dad’s files years after it was written. “I love you and have forgiven you, and if you will ask Jesus Christ into your heart,
Steve Flowers: Doug Jones annihilation reaffirms mantra that winning the Republican nomination for statewide office in Alabama is tantamount to election
The defeat of Democrat Doug Jones in our United States Senate Seat is easy to explain. It is a Republican seat. Alabama is one of if not the most Republican states in America. The nation is totally divided into clearly defined ideological tribes. You are either a right-wing conservative Republican or a left-wing liberal Democrat. There are very few true independent voters. In Alabama, there is an overwhelming majority of conservative Republicans. These two tribes vote a straight Republican ticket or a straight Democratic ticket. A good many just pull the straight ticket lever. Jones never had a chance. Many of us, who are longtime political observers, were curious as to whether Jones would toe the liberal Democratic line when he got to Washington or moderate somewhat and try to throw the Republican conservatives a bone or two. He stuck true to his colors and philosophy. Doug Jones has always been a liberal national Democrat and he stayed true to his beliefs. Having been an upfront political observer and participant of Alabama politics for the past 40 to 50 years, I have known most of the significant political players on the Alabama political stage during those years. Even though Doug Jones and I are around the same age and attended the University of Alabama, I never got to know him well. He was on the periphery as a party politician. He was always an ardent card-carrying loyal leader of the Democratic party. He was a stalwart Democrat when they were the majority party. Then when most folks left to become Republicans, he stayed and became more avid. He was a real Democrat. Over the years, Jones never strayed from proudly espousing that he was a liberal national Democrat. He openly and ardently supported George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Joe Biden several times, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. Jones is a true-blue, liberal, national Democrat. Most of us were surprised when he came out of his backroom political party role and private law practice to run for public office. He was shrewd enough to see the possibility that in a special election with a polarizing, tarnished candidate, he could squeak out a miraculous win in a special election to a U.S. Senate seat from Alabama as a Democrat. Many of us watched the irascible demagogue George Wallace dominate Alabama politics. Wallace would make numerous Don Quixote forays into presidential politics, spitting out the message, “There ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between the national Democratic and Republican parties,” and he was actually pretty close to right. However, folks, I am here to tell you that today in 2020 there is a lot of difference, philosophically, in the national Democratic party of Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, and Doug Jones and the national Republican party of Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, and Richard Shelby. The chasm is deep and wide. Jones voted right down the line with his liberal Democratic colleagues. Even voting against Trump’s two conservative Supreme Court appointments for no reason other than they were conservative and Republican appointees. The question is, would it have made any difference in Jones’ reelection chances had he compromised his liberal Democratic philosophy and voted with the Republican majority on some key votes? The answer is a resounding no. He would not have won with a “D” behind his name in a red Republican state in a presidential year, regardless. More than likely over 60% of the votes cast in the Heart of Dixie were straight Republican ticket voting. Jones has to be respected for sticking to his principles. He is a good and honest man with a lot of character and integrity. He just thinks and believes differently than an overwhelming number of his fellow Alabamians. He stayed true to the old political maxim that you dance with the one that brung you. He got and spent $18 million dollars of left-wing money in his race against Roy Moore, mostly from California. He allied and voted with his California donors over his nearly three-year tenure. They figured he was their third senator so they rewarded him with $25 million this time. He was able to outspend Republican Tommy Tuberville $25 million to $7 million. Even with an ungodly amount of California money Jones could only garner 40% of the vote. This race reaffirms the mantra and hard fact that winning the Republican nomination for a statewide office in Alabama is tantamount to election in the Heart of Dixie. See you next week. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.
Why Bernie Sanders keeps winning but may not be Democratic nominee
The standard line in Bernie Sanders‘ campaign speeches goes like this: “Despite what the corporate media is telling you, there is a path to the nomination.” If such a track exists, it’s far from clear what it is. Sanders is far behind Hillary Clinton in the race for delegates that will decide the nomination. He’ll need 68 percent of those remaining to win. Even after his recent run of success, Sanders is nowhere near that pace. And it’s not the corporate media he should be blaming, but the rules of a Democratic Party he only recently joined after serving decades in public office as an independent. The party has tailored its nominating process specifically to prevent an upstart candidate such as Sanders from winning its nomination for president. And Sanders’ top adviser, by the way, is a longtime Democratic Party insider helped write those rules. ___ HOW IT WORKS One word: Delegates. Not states won, not debate triumphs, not cash raised. Certainly not what the Sanders campaign calls “momentum.” The nominating contest is about winning 2,383 delegates, and the delegate math says Clinton is decidedly ahead of Sanders. The basics: All Democratic contests award delegates in proportion to the share of the vote — so even the loser gets some. That makes it hard for a front-runner to collect delegates and clinch the nomination as quickly as when the winner takes all. But the proportional system also makes it difficult for a trailing candidate to catch up if he or she falls behind by a large number. Clinton was able to amass a big delegate lead — at one point more than 300 delegates — by winning by large margins in the South, where there are large minority populations that largely back her over Sanders. In contrast, Sanders has mostly won smaller states that hold caucuses or won narrowly in larger states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, which has limited the number of delegates he’s netted in his effort to catch up to Clinton. To date, Sanders trails Clinton by close to 2.4 million total votes cast and by more than 200 delegates. In 2008, when Clinton trailed Barack Obama by more than 100 delegates, she was never able to catch up to him. The current count: Clinton has 1,280 delegates won in primaries and caucuses to Sanders’ 1,030. ___ WHAT ABOUT SUPERDELEGATES? Another factor: 15 percent of the delegates who get a vote at the Democratic National Convention are superdelegates, or elected officials and party leaders who can back any candidate they wish. They are the party establishment. And they overwhelmingly support Clinton. The Associated Press surveys those superdelegates and adds them to the tally if they say publicly whom they plan to vote for at the convention. The AP doesn’t count those who say they’ve decided, but aren’t willing to say so “on the record.” Clinton’s strong support among superdelegates widens her lead even more — 1,749 to Sanders’ 1,061. ___ HOW IT GOT THIS WAY For decades, the leaders and activists of the Democratic Party struggled to control its presidential nominating process. The back-and-forth gave birth in 1984 to the superdelegate. They are insiders and political pros who are not bound to any candidate, and they act as deciders in prolonged nomination fights. The original idea was to give party elders a voice in the nominating process to avoid a repeat of what some viewed as a mistake in the 1972 election, in which George McGovern won the nomination but proved to be a weak general election candidate. He lost 49 states in the November vote. In 1984, under the superdelegate system, former Vice President Walter Mondale was the choice of the Democratic establishment and won the party’s presidential nomination. He, too, lost 49 states in the general election. ___ SANDERS’ SUPERDELEGATE CONNECTION Tad Devine, Sanders’ top adviser and a Democratic Party veteran of more than three decades, helped craft the superdelegate process. He’s been quoted defending it — “It’s pretty hard to win a nomination in a contested race and almost impossible to win without the superdelegates,” he observed in a 2008 interview on National Public Radio — and also pointing out that there’s a danger of backlash if superdelegates wield too much power or operate in a less-than-transparent way. Devine told the AP last month that the Sanders campaign expects the superdelegates to choose a candidate “after the voters have spoken — not before.” ___ WHAT’S UP IN WASHINGTON STATE? Sanders won the Washington state caucuses by more than 40 percentage points, but he has only 25 of the state’s 101 delegates. (Clinton has nine.) Washington Democrats award most of their delegates based on vote totals in individual congressional districts. But the party has been unable to produce vote totals for each of those congressional districts. As soon as the state party parses the votes, the delegates can be allocated and Sanders’ total will jump Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Ed Moore: The presidential campaigns make me worry about America’s future
I often lament how little we learn from that which has come before in our political and governmental processes. It seems like each decade we drop time off the front end of our experiences, as if there is only so much room in our memories for what we have experienced. What else could explain our repeated willingness to follow a new “Pied Piper” every four years, promising the world but offering few solutions. We allow our frustrations to overcome our reasoning and many voters become drawn to the rhetoric of negativity. I cannot help but think of the “Wizard of Oz” and the vision Dorothy had of a better place than Kansas. We fall in love with a false promise, marketed to us as if we are planning a dream vacation rather than deciding who is going to lead the free world. Eight years ago we heard about hope and change, then four years later we just had to give more time for change to occur. Now hope and change have morphed into visions of making America great again, absent any concrete blueprints for how to get it done. In my head, I hear Larry the Cable Guy hollering “Get er done!”, while I keep wondering just exactly what it is that needs “gettin’.” The leading candidate on one side is filled with empty vision and false promise and, when pressed, seems to take every side of complex issues, sometimes even creating positions no one has espoused. The leading candidate on the other side, although losing a string of primaries while somehow extending her lead in delegates, always seems to be looking back over her shoulder for something creeping up on her. With that campaign, I keep thinking of Butch and Sundance riding as fast as they can while asking “Who are those guys?”. Will we ever see those guys engaged in pursuit of possible crimes or will they issue their findings only when it’s too late to change that party’s direction? It seems as if every conversation I have trends toward two points. One is dismay as to how we got to where we stand today. The second is questioning if there is any way out of this mess that we the voters created. I gave a lecture to a student group recently and one gentleman posed this question, after a lengthy discussion about the lack of real policy discussions from all sides. “Would it be OK if we just asked for a re-deal?” Unfortunately, in elections, there is no reshuffling of the deck and we are forced to play with the hands that get dealt. In this election, we even helped to pick the cards being dealt. No one seems to be excited about the potential face-off this fall of two flawed candidates, each with near record negatives in all polls. Each is distrusted by many voters. With almost one-third of the electorate now registered as “no party’ or ‘independent,” the pathway to the Yellow Brick Road is not as clearly marked as it was in the movie. We have had tough choices to make before. Think back to 1972 when George McGovern ran an energized campaign focused on ending a very unpopular war. He seized the nomination of his party but lost in record fashion. Think back to Ronald Reagan challenging Gerald Ford in 1976, falling short and then running again in 1980 against an incumbent who chastised the American electorate as being in a period of ‘malaise.” How inspiring that was! Then only four years later, Reagan appealed to our positive spirit and desire to be better as a people. He appealed to the better angels within us, something lacking in this 2016 election. We look to leaders to lead, to inspire. Instead, we get charlatans who truly are self-serving and view the world through very limited and cloudy lenses. They appeal to small groups that subscribe to the false promises of Oz. I want to scream, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” but our reality is the man behind the curtain. We are better than all of this as a nation and we need to awaken, just like Dorothy. Today we stand at a crossroads that will determine who we are as a nation. Will we be beguiled by traveling road show medicine men? Will we be captured by the swirling maelstrom and dropped into a land of make-believe? Or will we embrace the harsh reality that our society is complex and the problems facing government are vexing, requiring people of character, high moral values, and a deep understanding of building better pathways to success? Who we select as our leaders require us to be informed and educated on issues and to not fall prey to hyperbole and falsehoods. When Reagan ran in 1984, he had a series of commercials that have become famous for how clearly they defined where we stood and what threatened our standing in the world. One had these words: “It’s morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?” I would ask now, is where we are now headed where we truly wish to be as a country? Do we seek the promise of the new day or will we stay stumbling in the darkness? *** Ed H. Moore resides in Tallahassee, Florida, where he is perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder.
