AHC: President Strom Thurmond

That would leave the presidency to Robert Byrd. Thurmond was only President Pro Tempore until June.

Ah. Well, kill the three a few months earlier, I guess.

The biggest problem, of course, is that President Thurmond would likely name his VP (someone like Trent Lott, probably) and then resign. So, not much of a presidency.
 
After the Civil War, these are the politicians from the South nominated by a major party for the presidency:

1912 and 1916 Woodrow Wilson, born in Virginia but entire professional and political career was in New Jersey
1924 John W Davis, Congressman from West Virginia who became a lawyer in NY, compromise dark horse nominee, crushed in a landslide
1964 Lyndon Johnson, from Texas hill country and ended segregation
1976 Jimmy Carter

I remember Jimmy Carter's election as being a big deal, as the first President from the South since the Civil War (actually 1850). But you had LBJ and Woodrow Wilson, but you can argue that "the South" runs out before you get to the German settled Hill Country past the Brazos, and Wilson left the South early and was a northern elected official. I think Eisenhower was born in Texas but his family moved when he was an infant.

Maybe you can count Truman but then it starts getting ridiculous (Truman was from Kansas City). The point is that there was a pretty strong consensus against Southern pols even winning the Democratic presidential nomination between 1864 and 1964. That is why so many of them stayed in Congress over long periods. And this goes double for politicians from the Deep South.

The earliest opportunity for a Southern pol to be president was they way LBJ did it, remain loyal to the Democratic party, be relatively muted on civil rights, and get a Vice Presidential nomination after World War II, like upper South politicians Barkley and Kefauver, and deep South politician Sparkman, and then LBJ in 1960. Kennedy also reportedly considered Smathers from Florida. You could thrown in Garner from eastern (more Southern) Texas in 1932 and 1936, and Robinson from Arkansas in 1928. Once the "solid South" broke in 1920 the Democrats started giving Vice Presidential nominations to high profile Southern pols. A Southern politician getting the vice presidential nomination in 1960 of course has a good shot at the White House. It doesn't hurt to be Senate majority leader, like Barkley and Johnson, or to make a strong run for the nomination, like Kefauver and Johnson.

Of course, this wasn't Thurmond's political strategy, so this is out. You can't go this route by bolting the party and running as an arch-segretationist regional candidate. Thurmond has less of a chance of reaching the White House than Georgia Wallace, who at least had some followers outside of the deep South.

Maybe there is a chance if the NAACP Martin Luther King teams up with the Communists and tries terrorism and insurgency as their main strategy, but even in that scenario what you get is a northern politician with Thurmond's and Wallace's views in the White House.
 
1981: To *especially* impress Jodie Foster, John Hinckley somehow manages to shoot *both* Reagan and Bush and kill them both. Tip O'Neill, learning of the news, dies of a heart attack...
 
Make Thurmond apologize somewhere in the 1950s

Make Thurmond become Nixon's VP

Nixon is killed by Arthur Bremer

boom
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Of course he ran in 1948 as a Dixiecrat, though he only had access in 15 states. Best bet would have Truman not run in '48 and Thurmond be picked up as Veep to ballance the ticket, with the Democratic President dying during their first term.
Make Thurmond apologize somewhere in the 1950s

Make Thurmond become Nixon's VP

Nixon is killed by Arthur Bremer

boom
He was a Democrat until '64.
At age 82?
It's unrealistic, but that's all I've got. Either the Democrats stay Socially Conservative and he runs at some point after 1960, or he runs as a Republican. 1968 and 1972 are a bit too soon since he crossed the floor to them, though he might be able to run in '72, '76 and '80 would be running him against a fairly strong field in the Party.
 
In my post above, I distinguish between the deep South and the upper South.

The deep South is traditionally the states the formed the Confederacy before Lincoln started assembling forces to force them back into the Union by force. These were South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. They also had the largest slave populations in percentage terms. The other slave states joined later/ were deeply divided about the whole thing.

These states except for Texas and Florida are still a good definition of the deep South. After World War 2, Florida experienced lots of population growth due to migration from the Northeast and Midwest, also immigration from Puerto Rico and outside the US, mainly in areas that had been lightly populated beforehand. Only the northern quarter of the state remains in the Deep South. Texas has always been its own region, and had a post-World War 2 settlement pattern similar to Georgia.

The interesting thing is that except for the Presidents from Texas, Jimmy Carter is the only President of the US either born in or elected from one of the deep South states. In fact, he is the only Democratic, Republican, or Whig nominee who fits that description. Two Presidents were born in Texas and three had held elected office in Texas. From the rest, nothing. This extends even before the Civil War when the typical President was a slaveholder, though from the Upper South.

Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Taylor, Truman (very technically) and Clinton all from the Upper South. Lincoln and Wilson born in the Upper South. The Bushes, Lyndon Johnson, and Eisenhower all elected from or born in Texas. But only Carter from the deep South.

The Upper Midwest, the Mountain West, and the Pacific Northwest also have put no-one in the White House, but they were all settled later. South Carolina and Georgia were two of the thirteen colonies.
 
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