Wallace's grip on Alabama politics
In 1972, Nettles ran for the United States Senate, but industrialist Red Blount outfunded him. During the statewide campaign, Blount, who had traditionally been a moderate or even a progressive, realigned himself so as to become one of George Wallace's allies. Nettles explores the reasons Blount lost. Just after this passage, Nettles explains how he thinks this loss affected the Republican Party in Alabama.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Bert Nettles, July 13, 1974. Interview A-0015. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
We had
had a Republican senator elected in '66 from Birmingham, but he changed
after . . . after one session he changed, not his registration but
reidentified as a Democrat. So when I went to the legislature, by then
it had reverted back. Traditionally there had always been one Republican
in the legislature from Winston county, a north hill county up in . . .
north of Birmingham, which had threatened or attempted to secede from
Alabama during the War Between the States. And then in '72 I ran for US
Senate for the Republican nomination. We had a big interparty fight. The
young Republicans . . . some of the leadership . . . a lot of the
leadership were unhappy with Red Blount and Jim Martin and felt that
neither one could win against John Sparkman. We were uncertain that
Blount would come back and run. We knew he wanted to. Jim
Martin was . . . . I think you could relate Jim Martin very
much to Gardiner, in North Carolina. Very popular. Good speaker. Could
relate to the people. But very shallow and old style politics. In any
event, we wanted a new face and so I said "What the
heck" and a group of us got together. I had the backing. Had a
poll, interestingly enough, run by the Birmingham
Herald. They ran it themselves of the Republican leadership. All
the members of the state Republican executive committee and the county
chairmen and what not. I edged Blount out, led that poll. And then a
month later was trounced in the primary. It was a sad experience. Blount
had about 55,000 votes were cast in the Republican primary when Albert
Brewer was running against George Wallace neck and neck. And I think it
was fantastic that we got out that percentage of the vote. It was well
over 5% . . . almost 10%. We'd never had a state wide Republican primary
before. I had been the one to take the case to court forcing a
Republican primary. But in any event, we played right into the hands, I
suppose, of Blount, who had just a fantastic amount of money and spent
over half a million dollars in the primary. Of course was already very
well known. And people who were comfortable voting in the primary . . .
.
- JACK BASS:
-
He spent about $10 per voter then, right?
- BERT NETTLES:
-
Yes.
- WALTER DE VRIES:
-
That's got to be one of the all time records. That's better than
Fulbright.
- BERT NETTLES:
-
But, anyway, he won it handsomely and of course when the general election
came along he tried to tag John Sparkman as a McGovern type and referred
to the Sparkman-McGovern ticket and just . . . . Sparkman has his
problems. Old age is one of them. But he's never been a
McGovernite. And people just didn't buy it. We tried to
tell Red this. A lot of people did. He just got . . . . One of the
things about Red Blount . . . . He had been a progressive, well, a
moderate to a progressive and I think a man of honor and integrity and
had always stood up to George Wallace. But soon as that election came
along, he tried to get so close to George Wallace and to identify as a
man Wallace would be more comfortable with and tried to picture Sparkman
as a man who favored busing and was for anmesty. All of these wild eyed
things. And he just . . . . It was a sad thing because he not only lost
the election overwhelmingly, he lost his popular support with the news
media, with a lot of the people who I think really count.
- JACK BASS:
-
Do you think it would have made any difference if he had run as Red
Blount?
- BERT NETTLES:
-
No. Because he couldn't relate to people out in the street. I think the
only way a Republican could have won . . . it would have been an uphill
battle . . . would have been on an issue, an image or what was
Sparkman's chief drawback? His age. And have a young person with a new,
fresh image you know, running against him. That's what we're convinced
ourselves of. The money never came in.
- WALTER DE VRIES:
-
You think it was Blount's campaign strategy that defeated him rather than
the White House or the Committee to Re-elect . . . endorsement of
Sparkman.
- BERT NETTLES:
-
It was an endorsement, but I don't think it really mattered that
much.
- WALTER DE VRIES:
-
That's just a rationalization?
- BERT NETTLES:
-
It's a rationalization.