Alabama: George's Better Half

Solemnly pledging not to use "state facilities of any sort" to keep himself in power, Alabama's Governor George Wallace last week turned the state house of representatives into a convention hall to introduce his hand-picked gubernatorial candidate to a crowd of cheering partisans. "Ladies and gentlemen and fellow Alabamians," said Wallace, "I present to you my wife."

Lurleen Wallace, 39, a shy, honey-blonde mother of four, took the podium for 21 minutes to assure the folks that she had no intention of really governing Alabama if elected. As her husband put it, with characteristic finesse: "Both of us will be Governor of this state. I will make the policy decisions during her term of office."

American politics has not witnessed such cozy conjugality since Texas' Ma and Pa Ferguson played ring-around-a-rosy with the Governor's mansion in Austin after Pa was impeached for peculation in 1917. Since the Alabama constitution forbids a Governor to succeed himself, George's support for Lurleen is based on the communal-property concept of public office. In his intended role as a kind of local Lord Bird, Wallace hopes to build support for another third-party presidential bid as states' rights candidate in 1968.

Of ten other gubernatorial candidates, four besides Lurleen have a chance of surviving the first primary round on May 3. They are former Governor John Patterson, a rabid segregationist, and three moderates: Attorney General Richmond Flowers, former Representative Carl Elliott and State Senator Bob Gilchrist. If no candidate gets 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff between the two top vote getters on May 31. The winner will face a stiff fight from a strong Republican Party, which is expected to unite behind its own bitter-end segregationist, Freshman Representative James Martin, 47. Martin, who entered politics in 1962, came within 6,800 votes of winning Veteran Lister Hill's U.S. Senate seat in that year by campaigning on the integration issue and his "perfect 13-year attendance record" at Kiwanis Club meetings. This experience could be a powerful arguing point if Martin runs against Lurleen.