Political campaigns didn't get any dirtier than George C. Wallace's 1970 race for governor, a back-alley brawl that featured unabashed racism, altered photos, betrayal of friendships and personal attacks on family members.

As if it wasn't infamous enough, writer Kerwin C. Swint gave it the top spot in his new book, "Mudslingers: The Top 25 Negative Political Campaigns of All Time."

"It was the last openly racist campaign in America," said Swint, who put the campaign ahead of even the notorious Andrew Jackson-John Quincy Adams presidential race of 1828 that focused on the legality of Jackson's marriage.

Swint, a political scientist at Georgia's Kennesaw State University, said the 1970 Alabama campaign finished No. 1 in his book because it was more recent and combined the most dastardly tactics.

"It's very much deserving," said former Gov. Albert Brewer, who was the loser.

For Wallace, the 1970 race was a fight for his political life. If he had lost to Brewer, his former ally, then Wallace wouldn't have had a political stage to mount his campaign for president in 1972. The fight became even more intense when Brewer led Wallace in the Democratic primary -- putting the two in a runoff for the nomination, which was tantamount to an election at the time.

Ads played on the racial fears of white voters. Doctored photos showed Brewer with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and boxer Muhammad Ali.

Veteran Alabama black political leader Joe Reed, who was one of the targets of Wallace's wrath in 1970, called it "the most racist campaign in the history of the state. Before that, people talked about maintaining segregation. But this was a personal attack."

Going into the governor's race, Wallace was an ardent segregationist with a strong blue-collar appeal. Brewer was more moderate on race and was aligned with a white-collar crowd.

Wallace portrayed Brewer as a sissy, who had formed a "strange bedfellows" coalition with black leaders to win their endorsements. Wallace would urge voters to pull back the bedsheet and see who Brewer was in bed with.

That message was reinforced by ads urging white voters to turn out against Brewer's "bloc vote" from blacks. Another ad showed a white girl surrounded by seven black boys under the headline "Wake Up Alabama! Blacks Vow to Take Over Alabama."

Anti-Brewer material put out by anonymous groups targeted Brewer's family, accusing Brewer's wife of being an alcoholic and his two daughters of getting pregnant by blacks.

George Wallace Jr., who was in high school when the campaign started, agreed with Ingram that the race was dirty. "It was an intense campaign. That's fact," he said, but he questions the high rating in Swint's book.

Wallace, who won the runoff and the governor's office -- then was crippled by a would-be assassin in the 1972 presidential race -- eventually made his peace with the black leaders he targeted in 1970. He was elected to a fourth term as governor in 1982 with strong black support. But Wallace and Brewer never made up before Wallace died in 1998.

"I never heard from him," Brewer said.

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