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 all the damn Democrats had told them. But it was as unusual as hell, now

 this was 1962. People would come around, they would look around and make

 sure that nobody was listening and say, "You know, I'm really a Republican.

 I think like a Republican, but I'm a registered Democrat because that's all

 you can do." In 1964, in the five counties that I had, I elected Republicans

 in every county and in three of the counties, we tipped over the courthouse.

 Coleman County, Alabama, which is the home of the former governor, Big Jim

 Folsom, who was still a tremendous force, had a brand new courthouse.

 Now, it wasn't the fact that we had such a great organization, but we did

 have a good organization. But the fact that the people had been used to

 voting a straight ticket and because Goldwater was the head of the

 ticket, they walked in and flipped the Goldwater switch and all of them.

 And we elected the highest elected official in Alabama, which is a probate

 judge, we elected the probate judge in three of the five counties that I

 had and elected a Congressman. A very good Congressman. He'd still be

 up there if he hadn't dropped out and ran against Lurleen Wallace, which

 was a tremendous mistake. I mean, there was no way that anybody would be

 able to beat her. A man by the name of Jim Martin. So, immediately after

 that, everybody thought that.I was crazy for moving to Florida because we

 had had such a Republican sweep. We cleaned out the courthouse in Blount

 County and you know, it was unheard of, people didn't believe it. But we

 had found that there were good Republicans there, most of them were in

 business. I had a man who was in the chicken business, raises millions of

 chickens a year and he agreed to run for probate judge and he was a very

 good one. So, we went a long way toward making those counties Republican

 and that was the best five Republican counties in the state. And then the






From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview /4-O in the Southern Historical Collection,
University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. FOR REFERENCE ONLY: PERMISSION TO
PUBLISH MUST BE REQUESTED. WARNING: MOST MANUSCRIPTS ARE PP. ''T'-D BY C 1 r --'