Wallace Ally Loses Race for Alabama Nomination

Atty. Gen. Charles Graddick edged out Lt. Gov. Bill Baxley in a tight runoff election Tuesday for the Democratic nomination to succeed Gov. George C. Wallace and lead Alabama into a new political era.

With 99% of the state’s precincts reporting, Graddick, a conservative, had 460,451 votes compared to 451,284 for Baxley, a self-proclaimed liberal and frequent Wallace ally.

“The people of this state spoke well and clear tonight,” Graddick told his campaign supporters as he declared victory in the fiercely contested race at around 10:25 p.m. “We’ve got to take this state into the 1990s. We are going to unify (the state) and bring Alabama back together.”

Baxley Won’t Concede

But Baxley refused to concede. Speaking to his supporters about 25 minutes after Graddick claimed victory, Baxley said that “our count is showing a little bit different from Charlie’s.”

“I’m not here yet to concede,” he said. “I’m not saying yet that we lost.”

In other runoffs, Jim Folsom Jr., son of the legendary 6-foot-8 former Gov. James E. (Big Jim) Folsom, won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, defeating state Sen. John Teague of Childersburg.

And George Wallace Jr., son of the retiring four-term governor, defeated Jim (Watchdog) Zeigler to take the Democratic nomination for state treasurer.

Graddick will face Republican nominee Guy Hunt in the November election, but Hunt is given little chance of victory because no Republican has been elected governor of Alabama since 1874.

An Ideological Choice

Alabama does not register voters by political party and the runoff was held one day after two circuit judges ruled differently on the question of whether 35,000 voters in the Republican primary could cross over and vote in the Democratic runoff. Graddick had appealed for the GOP vote Monday.

The runoff, required by the outcome of balloting in the June 3 Democratic primary, offered Alabama voters an unusually clear-cut ideological choice. Baxley, 44, a former two-term attorney general who lost a 1978 race for governor, openly embraced his support from labor unions and blacks. Graddick, a 41-year-old Mobile native now in his eighth year as attorney general, staked out a conservative “law-and-order” position and directed his campaign chiefly toward white voters.

But the ideological contrast between the two candidates was overshadowed by continued name-calling and charges of racial politics.

The candidates began taking aim at each other from the moment the primary results earlier this month matched them up for the runoff out of a five-candidate field.

‘Circle Your Wagons’

“Bill, you better circle your wagons, fella, ‘cause we’re gettin’ ready to come at you,” Graddick said with a clenched-jaw expression as his supporters cheered.

Baxley, in turn, raised the specter of racial division’s marring the runoff contest. “I hope that this race doesn’t degenerate into a race where people are trying to divide us by race,” he said.

In an attack that appeared to be the most damaging to Baxley’s prospects, Graddick called the lieutenant governor a “liar” for denying any misuse of state cars. The Birmingham News had reported in March that state cars driven by Alabama troopers had been used to transport a woman reporter to and from the Montgomery apartment Baxley shares with five other men when working in the capital. The News later printed two pictures showing the reporter and a state trooper leaving Baxley’s apartment. But the car pictured was registered to Baxley’s campaign and not the state.

Wife Defends Baxley

After the photographs were published, Baxley’s wife, Lucy, launched a series of news conferences in defense of her husband, beginning with one at their Birmingham home.

She accused Graddick and the Birmingham News of “shameful tactics . . . against our family,” and added that her husband had “in no way violated the trust in our marriage” and denied that he had a personal relationship with the reporter. The reporter, who resigned her job with the Associated Press on the day the News first published its allegations, has refused to comment.

Meanwhile, Baxley called Graddick “a coward” for backing out of their third scheduled television debate earlier this month and alleged that the attorney general had made a payoff in return for a runoff endorsement from former Lt. Gov. George McMillan, who had placed fourth in the Democratic primary. Baxley said McMillan aides had earlier approached Baxley’s campaign aides with a promise of support in return for $480,000 to help retire his campaign debts.

Both Graddick and McMillan denied Baxley’s charges.