American Independent Party

THE AMERICAN INDEPENDENT Party (AIP) was the electoral vehicle for the 1968 third-party presidential candidacy of Governor George C. Wallace (D-AL). A short-lived personality-driven party, the AIP began as a splinter movement by alienated southern Democrats to protest the perceived hostility of the national party's policies toward the interests of their region. The ideological descendant of Strom Thurmond's 1948 States' Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats) candidacy, the American Independent platform of Wallace offered an anti-establishment program of economic populism, social conservatism, and local government control. Wallace was an effective political agitator who rallied supporters around his nascent party organization and employed his charismatic skills in reaching conservatives who wanted to “send a message” to the nation's political elites.

While the American Independent Party was unable to sustain itself after its standard-bearer returned to the Democratic Party to run in the 1972 presidential primaries, the 1968 AIP campaign has enduring significance. Moreover, Wallace's AIP candidacy earned the fifth highest popular vote share ever recorded for a third party in a presidential race. The presence of Wallace's name on 50 state ballots and the issues upon which he focused influenced the electoral calculations and substantive emphasis of Richard Nixon (R-CA) and Hubert Humphrey (D-MN), the major party candidates. The electoral success of the AIP, or more precisely, the Wallace movement, was indicative of larger coalitional changes underway in the American electorate that suggested the historical one-party dominance of the south by the Democrats would soon cease to exist.

George Wallace rose to national prominence in early 1963 when, in his inaugural address, the newly elected Alabama governor pledged “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” Wallace's resistance to social change received further media attention months later when he “stood in the schoolhouse door,” symbolically defying the federal order to desegregate the University of Alabama. Attempting to expand his electoral appeal, Wallace embarked on a national speaking tour soon after the standoff. Wallace's opposition to desegregation, he explained, was part of a broader critique of the American political system. The federal government, to Wallace, had become too powerful and repeatedly infringed upon the control of local jurisdictions. The “forgotten men,” who Wallace came to represent thought political leaders were capitulating to minority concerns at the expense of the white working class. In addition to his natural southern constituency, Wallace's message resonated with the racial anxieties of northern white ethnics.

After “testing the waters” in several Democratic primaries, Wallace contemplated a third-party candidacy in 1964. Wallace, however, decided to sit out the general election after Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) received the Republican nomination and would likely address concerns similar to those Wallace had voiced in his own party's primary contests. Wallace's unexpected success in primaries outside of the south-31 percent in Indiana, 34 percent in Wisconsin, and nearly 43 percent in Maryland-suggested to the governor there was widespread support for his populist program.

Declaring, “there's not a dime's worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans,” Wallace created the American Independent Party in preparation for the 1968 presidential election. The AIP platform, among other anti-Washington sentiments, condemned federal civil rights legislation, opposed all federal gun control efforts, demanded a restoration of order in urban areas, lobbied for local freedom from government intervention, and proposed a constitutional amendment calling for elections or referenda on federal district judges. To evade criticism that the AIP was a one-man entity and therefore not a “legitimate” party, the Wallace campaign held a nominating convention where the party platform was ratified by delegates and Retired Air Force General Curtis Lemay was drafted as the vice-presidential nominee.

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