Alabama segregationist George Wallace received more than 15% of the vote in 15 Ohio's 88 counties.
Wallace had a big following in southwest Ohio. He received 12.8% of the vote in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) in the southwestern corner of the state.
New York Times, 12/12/2022
But Wallace, as Cowie makes clear, had bigger ambitions. Instinctively, he knew that his brand of politics had an audience anywhere that white Americans were under strain and looking for someone to blame. Wallace became the sneering face of the backlash against the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, against any law or court ruling or social program that aimed to include Black Americans more fully in our national life. Racism was central to his appeal, yet its common note was grievance; the common enemies were elites, the press and the federal government. “Being a Southerner is no longer geographic,” he declared in 1964, during the first of his four runs for the White House. “It’s a philosophy and an attitude.”
Related post:
No comments:
Post a Comment