If you are a regular here, you may have heard this story before. But it bears repeating.
In 1958, George Wallace ran for governor of Alabama against John Patterson, a fire-breathing segregationist. Wallace, though also a segregationist, was considered enough of a racial moderate to be endorsed by the NAACP. So naturally, he was trounced.
Sometime afterward, as recounted by biographer Marshall Frady, a rueful Wallace made a defining declaration to a room full of politicos: “John Patterson out-nigguhed me. And boys, I’m not goin’ to be out-nigguhed again.”
As history shows, he never was. Which is to say Wallace, who became governor in 1963, was never again found deficient in stoking racial animosity for political gain.