Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is more dangerous than George Wallace ever was to be President.
Wallace, Governor of Alabama and the infamous racial white supremacist, became a nightmare to many, as he became a national figure when he tried to prevent integration of the University of Alabama in 1963, and started pursuing the Presidency.
In 1968, Wallace, after competing in Democratic Presidential primaries, ran as the American Independent Party nominee for President, and won 13.5 percent of the national popular vote, and five Southern states and 46 electoral votes.
This occurred during the heights of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
Wallace ran again in Democratic Presidential primaries in the spring of 1972, until, sadly, he was struck down by an attempted assassination in Maryland perpetrated by Arthur Bremer on May 15, 1972, discussed in detail in this author’s chapter in his book “Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama” (Rowman Littlefield Publishers, 2015, Paperback 2017).
Wallace would be paralyzed for the rest of his life, but went on to be Alabama Governor again in the 1980s, and with a different tone, including apologizing for hie hateful behavior, and asking forgiveness from civil rights leaders. He had multiple surgeries to relieve his pain and suffering, and lived on for 26 years until his death in 1998 at age 79.
As horrible as Wallace was, he represented a state that was much less significant than Florida, in population and economic and social influence. And regarding a multitude of matters, Wallace was not promoting all kinds of other limitations as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is now doing, as he plans to seek the Presidency, and is appealing to the Extreme Right of his party, and seen by many as the inheritor of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) Donald Trump followers.
Wallace, despite his being a threat, was clearly never going to be President, but Ron DeSantis IS a real threat, representing the third largest state, and has a clear opportunity and possibility, to go all the way to the White House!