George Wallace
George Wallace (1919—1998) was governor of Alabama for four terms, two of them non-consecutive: 1963-1967, 1971-1975, 1975-1979, and 1983-1987. In addition, he was the "#1 assistant" of his wife, who was the governor from 1967-1968.
According to the Drive-By Truckers, George Wallace is now in Hell partyin' it up Alabama-style with Satan.
[edit] Governor of Alabama
Wallace's first run for governor was actually in 1958, when he ran as the anti-Ku Klux Klan candidate and with the endorsement of the NAACP. His opponent in the Democratic Party primary was the pro-KKK candidate John Patterson, who won (and won the general election as there was no Republican Party to speak of in Alabama nor most other deep south states at the time; the Democratic primary was for all intents and purposes one and the same as the general election).
Oops. Lesson learned. Wallace knew what he had to do to win election in Alabama: do a 180 on the segregation issue, which he did. He then proceeded to get elected as a pro-segregationist candidate in 1963, and shortly thereafter gave his infamous first inaugural address ("I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny and I say segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!") and his equally infamous "stand in the schoolhouse door" proclamation.
In 1966, Alabama's state constitution prohibited governors from serving two consecutive terms. Wallace had tried to repeal this law as governor, but failed. Therefore, he had his wife, Lurleen Wallace, run for governorship; she easily won the Democratic primary, and therefore the election. In 1961, Lurleen was diagnosed with uterine cancer; she was kept in the dark about this for four years. In 1968, during the middle of her governorship, the cancer killed her.
[edit] Presidential candidate
In 1968 he ran for President of the United States on the American Independent Party ticket, which was a cobbled together party of Birchers, southern segregationists, and elderly mental cases (two of those are redundant). He returned to the Democratic Party and the governor's seat by 1971, and ran for President again in 1972 and 1976. In 1972 an assassination attempt on his life cut his campaign short, though he did win two major northern primaries in a sympathy vote right after he was shot. He did flip-flop a second time on the segregation issue, recanting his former racist ways and winning the 1982 gubernatorial election with unprecedented record levels of black support.