Roy Moore Is No George Wallace

When the media want to paint a Southern politician with a distasteful brush, they always turn to George Wallace. Certainly the state media couldn't wait to compare the two.

The Montgomery Advertiser ...

Local resident Jon Broadway had a different reaction.

"Oh, dear!" he said immediately after hearing about the announcement. "I can say safely that it would be the most tragic thing I can see for the state, to have him represent this state. It would make (former Gov.) George Wallace look like a distinguished gentlemen."

The Birmingham News ...

Moore also has drawn comparisons with Wallace from those who speculated he wants to spark a showdown with the federal government over his Ten Commandments display, similar to Wallace's schoolhouse door stand. Moore said Monday that he has no such plans, but he left the door open as to what else he might do.

"I have no plans to relocate the monument from its home here in Gadsden, but I'll tell you what I will do. I will defend the right of every citizen of this state - judges, coaches, teachers, city, county and state officials - to acknowledge God as the solemn source of law, liberty and justice," Moore said.

The Mobile Register ...

Moore's choice of campaign themes harkened remembrances of four-time Alabama Gov. George Wallace's promise to "Stand Up for Alabama." And his signature and challenge to other candidates was reminiscent of the Contract with America that Republicans used in 1994 to wrest control of Congress from the Democratic Party.

William Stewart, a political science professor at the University of Alabama, said much of Moore's rhetorical flourish and political tactics owe much to Wallace. Moore, Stewart said, uses "the acknowledgment of God" much as Wallace used race.

"He stirs passions among people the way he speaks, unlike the other three candidates," Stewart said. "(His listeners) want to stand and cheer."

Note to the history scholars disguised as editors ordering up such articles, Roy Moore is no George Wallace. First, Wallace's early reputation was that of a social moderate -- a populist who supported the more racially progressive Big Jim Folsom. Folsom even appointed Wallace, a state representative, to the board of all-black Tuskegee Institute. Wallace then returned home to serve as a judge, where civil rights attorney J.L. Chestnut recalls a very different man on the bench.

... J. L. Chestnut remembers those days, recalling that Wallace was the first judge to refer to him, a black man, as "Mr. Chestnut."

"Wallace was for the underdog," says Chestnut in the film. The lawyer recalls a case in which he was representing a group of poor black farmers against a major cotton oil processor. The lawyers for the cotton industry "wouldn't even refer to us as plaintiffs. They just said, 'those people,'" remembers Chestnut. "And you could see Wallace getting tense over that and giving them the eye. And finally he says to them, 'When you address Mr. Chestnut, you will address him as Mr. Chestnut. You will refer to his clients as the plaintiffs.' And Wallace ruled against them and ruled for me in every case. If I was asking for one hundred dollars, I got one hundred and fifty dollars. He was sitting without a jury. So Wallace was quite different from the rest of the judges in Alabama."

Wallace's views (at least his publicly stated ones) changed upon losing his first run for governor to John Patterson in 1958. Wallace declined the support of the Ku Klux Klan; Patterson accepted it. While Wallace announced he favored segregation, he received the NAACP's endorsement -- in large part because he rejected the Klan. In return, the people of Alabama rewarded him with a 64,000-vote loss.

Upon this defeat, Wallace's transformed into the rabid segregationist that we all know -- declaring "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever" and blocking black students' entrance at the door leading to the University of Alabama. He never lost another statewide race.

Four times he was elected governor, and in 1972, if not for a would-be assassin's bullet, he could have very well been the Democratic nominee for president. One of his gubernatorial victories came after he rejected his previous racist policies and received overwhelming black support.

Yes, Wallace and Moore were/are masters of demagoguery, and their ambition and thirst for power was/is scary. And, no, Moore has yet to turn dogs and water hoses loose on citizens seeking equal rights.

So what is the major difference? When Wallace ranted and raved about the evils of "race-mixing," he seemed genuine. But actions at other times of his life show he may have simply been acting out of political expediency (not that it excuses his behavior at all). However, when Roy Moore -- in a ruling from the bench -- calls homosexuality "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature," you get the feeling he means it.

And George Wallace did actually have some positive accomplishments, although they will never exceed the damage he did. Wallace is credited with vast highway improvements, record educational financing (you can't drive more than an hour in Alabama, it seems, without passing a junior college or technical school -- many of them named after some Wallace family member), mental health treatment funding and efforts to transition the state's economy away from agricultural dominance into more skilled trades.

Moore's most noted accomplishment is getting kicked out of office by his fellow Alabama lawyers for displaying a replica of the Ten Commandments in a hysteria that bordered on idolatry.

Let's hope the Republicans in Alabama see what a step backward Roy Moore would be as governor. If not, Lucy Baxley is one lucky woman.