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 been here. I've been trying to convince the people on the local level,

 but they come back and say, "All right, leave me alone. I'll give you

 money and support you, but let me vote in the Democratic primaries and

 I'll get two shots at a guy. If I don't like him, I'll get one at him

 in September and another at him in November." I've been trying to

 convince them that they should realign now, but as long as the Democrats

 control all these courthouses from Jacksonville to Pensacola, it's hard

 to get them to switch. But you know, if there is a grand realignment .

 you are talking about Wallace and while you are in Alabama, you can find

 this, you probably already know it and probably know more about it than

 I do, but I lived in Alabama when this happened it tickles me in

 a way, I mean, it tickles me funny-like, it's not a damn bit funny, but

 Wallace has got people convinced that he is a conservative. But he's not

 a conservative. He switched in 1958, he was the most liberal minded man

 in the Alabama legislature. And he ran for governor against a man named

 John Patterson who was elected strictly on his father's shroud, if you

 want to put it that way, because his father was assassinated, but when

 Patterson defeated Wallace, Wallace made the statement that, "I will

 neve be out-seged again." He did a 180 degree turn in one day, he

 didn't do it gradually, he did it in one day. And you know, you can

 tell the people from his hometown down there, you can tell the people

 from Montgomery and they've already forgotten it. And they think that he

 is a great conservative, but hell, he's not a conservative. He's a political

 opportunist. That's true.

 J.B.: Who do you think would win a Republican presidential primary in

 Florida in '76, looking the field over now?

 Thomas: In Flordia? Reagan definitely would. Ford in all probability, if




From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview /4-~ 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 PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT.