Q:How would you describe Wallace?
A:
George Wallace was just a magnetic politician. And he had a vernacular where he could appeal to everyday people. And even though he did it in a divisive way, in regards to the civil rights issues and so forth, he had also a little bit of that class struggle in him that I admired a lot, you know. He never was really thought of that well by the big industrialists in Alabama, and he did a lot of work in Alabama to establish community colleges and industrial schools that really ended up serving poor people, black and white. And he fought opposition to do that. He was a real magnetic personality, a politically driven person that just totally got engaged in the Democratic process. And I believe in the Democratic process. I think it's the last best hope for peace and justice that we have. You know, the Democratic process to me is the great American ideal, and he got out there and got involved in it, and like we discussed earlier, he's admitted his mistakes, a great deal of them. And he'll be known in history as a person that had his ideas and his issues carried forward beyond his time in politics.
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