AHC: Win Kennedy More of the South in 1960

In 1960, Kennedy managed to gain many southern states, thanks most likely to Lyndon Johnson (certainly in Texas). However, he lost many as well. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida (home state of his friend, Senator George Smathers) went for Nixon. The electors in Mississippi and Alabama (the latter not totally but mostly) cast their votes for segregationist Democrat Harry F. Byrd in protest of the pro Civil Rights platform of the party. One faithless elector in Oklahoma did likewise.

The challenge here is to win Kennedy more of the South in the 1960 election.
 
He picks a segregationist as a vice presidential candidate, then ignores him for the rest of the term until he resigns in protest? and/or challenges him in 1964?

Implausible and kind-of ASB-ish, but that's all I can come up with.
 
In 1960, Kennedy managed to gain many southern states, thanks most likely to Lyndon Johnson (certainly in Texas). However, he lost many as well. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida (home state of his friend, Senator George Smathers) went for Nixon. The electors in Mississippi and Alabama (the latter not totally but mostly) cast their votes for segregationist Democrat Harry F. Byrd in protest of the pro Civil Rights platform of the party. One faithless elector in Oklahoma did likewise.

The challenge here is to win Kennedy more of the South in the 1960 election.

A POD some time ago causes Kennedy to become a Dixiecrat instead of a liberal. Stuff happens in between that POD and 1960. Kennedy decides to run for Presidency in 1960, and gains the Democratic nomination. Though he wins the South, he loses the presidency to a Republican liberal.
 
A POD some time ago causes Kennedy to become a Dixiecrat instead of a liberal. Stuff happens in between that POD and 1960. Kennedy decides to run for Presidency in 1960, and gains the Democratic nomination. Though he wins the South, he loses the presidency to a Republican liberal.

You're committing scenario naughtiness.
 
Kennedy can do what Carter did when running for Governor of Georgia: act like a racist bastard, then spend most of his inauguration flip-flopping like a fish out of water.
 
Kennedy can do what Carter did when running for Governor of Georgia: act like a racist bastard, then spend most of his inauguration flip-flopping like a fish out of water.

Unlike Carter running for governor, Kennedy is a northeastern Democrat running for the national Democratic presidential nomination and then the presidency thereafter. I have trouble seeing him either doing that or managing to pull it off.
 
Unlike Carter running for governor, Kennedy is a northeastern Democrat running for the national Democratic presidential nomination and then the presidency thereafter. I have trouble seeing him either doing that or managing to pull it off.

I wasn't being very serious. I don't think Kennedy winning more of the South is really possible without a different POD or serious behind-the-scenes machinations.
 
I wasn't being very serious. I don't think Kennedy winning more of the South is really possible without a different POD or serious behind-the-scenes machinations.

Therein lies the challenge. Kennedy is a Catholic Northeast Liberal with a national Democratic party with a pro-Civil Rights platform, and the times will allow for nothing less. Nixon is running as the Republican nominee, also with a national Republican party with a pro-Civil Rights platform, as again the times will allow for nothing less. The Southerner can't be too overtly happy about either, and it seems more a matter of who is the lesser of two evils for the Southerner of 1959/1960, and who upsets them least. And that varies by region and state, and is influenced by action and factors such as the Vice Presidential running mates (I'm thinking of Lyndon Johnson).
And the issue then is, if Nixon does something to piss off the Southerners a bit more or if things in the South poll just a bit different, how to have it not just lead to more Southern states joining the faithless elector bandwagon Mississippi and Alabama were on and which other Southern states could have joined.
 
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