In retrospect the election of 1948 was the key election of the 20th
century. Before then, the Democratic Party had a right leg sunk in
racial discrimination as complete as the coming generation of British
colonies in Africa, and a Socialist flavored Labour analogue in Northern
factories and cties.
That arrangement was lost when the Puerto Rican lunatics invaded the
convention floor in July 1948. There were only six of the nuts and they
only hit a third of the people they targeted, /_1_/ but one of the
decedents of the raid was Harry S. Truman.
By the alteration of the Presidential Succession Act brought about by
Harry Triman, Sam Rayburn of Texas, the Speaker of the House became
president from July, 1948, to January 1949. Rayburn sought to be a
compromise candidate who could reunite the party, split as it was
between Wallace of the Left and Thurmond oof the Right and racialist
South. The cosolidation of the Democrats proved to be beyond Rayburn's
skills, though he did linger in the race until Election Day.
The popular votes were evidence that Rayburn's conservatism pared
Wallace down to a few liberals while Thurmond managed a regional
Southern triumph.
Thomas Dewey 50.4 %
Sam Rayburn 32.9%
Strom Thurmond 12.7%
Henry Wallace 4.3%
Thomas Dewey settled easily into the White House. Four years later, in
1952, Dewey & Wallace won a second term in spite of the best efforts of
the National Democrats who ran the ticket of Averill Harriman and Hubert
Humphrey against the incumbents, losing the popular vote 47% Dewey to
30% Harriman. In what might as well have been a separate election, the
South Dixiecrats (concentrated in the defunct CSA) took their region
with 14.5% of the popular vote.
On the recommendation of Warren, who had won the respect of Dewey during
their two terms together, Earl Warren went on to win the Presidency
twice himself (49.5% in 1956 and 50.4% in 1960). Hubert Humphrey was
the Democratic Presidential nominee in 1956 (31% that year) and John
Kennedy (29.7% popular vote in 1960). /_2_/ The Dixiecrats remained
dominant in their South, but a suuccessful Costitutional Amendment
eliminated the Electoral College, making it pointless for the South-only
Dixiecrats to make a race for now useless electoral voices.
The third double-term "Great Governor of the 20th Century" was Nelson
Rockefeller, who relieved Warren of the presidency in 1964. Rockefeller
and his Vice President, Walter Judd of Minnesota beat the National
Democratic ticket 49.5% Rockefeller to 34% Goldwater of Arizona. The
Dixiecrats scored only 11% for Creighton Abrahams, a recently retired
general with a policy of "Patriot Pride" by which he wanted to recruit
British white supremists in soon to be independent African colonies.
Those colonies (Uganda, Kenya, Rhodesia and South Africa) were planned
by the Dixiecrats as a pro-American bastion in the new Africa,
FOOTNOTES
/_1_/ In our history, those Puerto Ricans did not organize together
untill November 1950. Back in that day, the would beassins were
labeled as nuts and the word terrorists might not have been used.
/_2_/ In his re-election of 1960, President Earl Warren had succeeded in
amending the US Constitution so that the US electorate elected their
president directlly by the largest plurality.
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