WI/AHC: Liberal Republicans and Conservative Democrats

What could have happened in twentieth-century US politics to make political realignment go the other way - the Republican Party becomes predominately liberal and the Democrats become predominately conservative? Or, maybe more realistically, the Republicans become a "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" party and the Democrats become right-wing populists?
 
In short, you're not going to accomplish it without a pre-1900 POD.

The Republican Party dominated national political power from 1860 until 1932. While Democrats occaisionally took control of Congress or the Presidency, they generally did so only by exploiting weakness or internal division within the ruling Republican coalition. Under these conditions, the Republican Party became the natural party of government, closely tied with business and economic interests.

Additionally, the continuing legacy of economic and cultural sectionalism effectively made the Democratic Party the regional party of the South. From 1876 until 1932, we really shouldn't even consider the Democratic Party a single party, but rather two separate wings sharing the name in a cynical alliance. As the Republican Party became the party of the established economic interests, the Northern wings of the Democratic Party became the primary venue for dissident liberals and economic populists.

This arrangement was set in stone by 1900. For the Bourbon Southern Democrats to break it would be to surrender any hope for national political relevancy. They were wedded to the arrangement even as the Northern wing began to overpower them (from 1912 to 1918 in particular). FDR and the New Deal were simply the culmination of a decades long political trend.

The Civil War made the Republicans the natural party of governance. To compete, the Democrats had to become the party of populist and liberal interests in the North. You can stop this trend, but it won't entail the Republicans becoming a mirror image of what they are IOTL. Northern workers and liberals occaisonally flirted with breaking their electoral alliance, such as with the Populists, the Socialist Party of America, and later the abortive attempts of establishing Progressive or Farmer-Labor parties from the teens into the 20s, but those efforts failed.
 
Kennedy picks a segregationist as vp who takes over in 63. Rockefeller beats Goldwater for republican nod in 64. Democrats dont push for civil rights in 64.republicans do instead. Strom Thurmond stays a democrat. Nixon doesn't run in 68 with his southern strategy. Wallace gets democratic nod. Democrats stay southern power. Liberals flock to republican like Rockefeller and Edward Brooks among others
 
Kennedy picks a segregationist as vp who takes over in 63. Rockefeller beats Goldwater for republican nod in 64. Democrats dont push for civil rights in 64.republicans do instead. Strom Thurmond stays a democrat. Nixon doesn't run in 68 with his southern strategy. Wallace gets democratic nod. Democrats stay southern power. Liberals flock to republican like Rockefeller and Edward Brooks among others
The Democratic Party had been the party of northern liberals for 30 years at this point. Why on Earth would Kennedy pick a segregationist Southern yokel to be his running mate? That would have been political suicide even in 60. No one wanted any connection with the the violence they were seeing on the nightly news, and it was unpopular enough that Eisenhower could invoke Posse Comitatus to enforce court ruling against segregation.
 
Ok...how about FOR dies in 1934. John Nance Garner takes over. He gets re_elected in 36. Stops much of new deal. I stead pushes democrats to the right so republicans move somewhat left and eventually the party of civil rights...or

FOR doesn't dump Wallace. He takes over when FOR dies. The allegations and facts around his pro communist beliefs come out after he is nominated in 48~~too late to remove from ballot. Most of the liberal dems flee to Dewey to avoid being called communist while more conservative dems go for strom. Dewey wins and democrats are weakened. The liberal dems stay with the Republicans in future while the conservative dems-dixicrats retake the party from the rump faction left behind as being conservative the don't risk being labelled as reds
 
Hughes wins 1916, gets blame for war, Conservative Democrats run show until 1933, a Republican New deal (and no need to be nice to Southern Democrats)
 
What about this?

1) The groups that constituted the Populists, Socialists, and Farmer-Labor merge into a new left-populist party that starts to siphon off the northern liberals and organized labor figures who allied with the Democrats.

2) The Republican Party's Progressive wing reaches an accommodation with the party's business interests, whereby they take a sort of soft classical liberal approach: egalitarian, very "good government"-focused, in favor of some regulation but still pro-free market.

3) Traditionally-minded conservatives, having nowhere else really to go, ally with Southern Democrats.

From there it could stay a three-party system, or maybe the left-populists and the moderately liberal Republicans, after losing enough elections to conservative Democrats due to a split anti-conservative vote, decide on some sort of merger or coalition.
 
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