Wallace's aides came to favor
Happy Chandler, the former
baseball commissioner and governor of Kentucky. It was hoped that Chandler could help put Wallace over the top in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Florida, where he was narrowly behind Nixon, and solidify support in Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina, where Wallace was leading. Wallace was cautious: Chandler had supported the hiring of
Jackie Robinson by the
Brooklyn Dodgers, and was now more of a mainstream liberal Democratic politician. Wallace was persuaded by early September; as one of Wallace's aides put it, "We have all the nuts in the country, we could get some decent people– you working one side of the street and he working the other side." When the "done deal" was leaked to the press, Wallace's supporters objected; Wallace's Kentucky campaign chair resigned, and influential donor
Nelson Bunker Hunt demanded that Chandler be dropped from the ticket. Wallace retracted the invitation. Hunt's first choice for the second slot was
Eisenhower Cabinet member Ezra Taft Benson. Benson was barred by several
Mormon leaders from joining a Wallace ticket; Benson's membership in the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles would have caused an image problem for the church had he joined the Wallace ticket.