Politics

Spoiler Candidates, or What Might Have Been

The esteemed Mr. Lott's remarks of the previous week, and ensuing discussion, prompted Jerry Pournelle to note

What no one is doing is thinking about what the county might have been like if Strom Thurmond had won more of the Southern vote for his States Rights Democrat slate. Since that slate couldn't have won in the North, the chance that Thurmond would become President was nil. Truman might have been kept out of the White House. As it was, Truman beat Dewey (a liberal Republican) and won a term in his own right.

What if? In 1948, the South did not vote in a solid bloc for Strom Thurmond. More importantly, they didn't in the Electoral College, and so Dewey Truman won. Let's look at the breakdown.

Thurmond won Alabama (11), Louisiana (10), Mississippi (9), South Carolina (8), and 1 vote from Tennessee, for 39 votes of 531. If the South had voted in toto for Thurmond, then Arkansas (9), Florida (8), Georgia (12), Kentucky (11), Oklahoma (10), the rest of Tennessee (11), Texas (23), and Virginia (11) would have given him 134 votes out of 531, leaving Dewey with 189 and Truman with 208, with 266 needed to win, thus throwing the election into the House of Representatives. The 80th Congress (1947-1949) was composed of 246 Republicans, 188 Democrats, and 1 Other. Would the 13 Southern states find enough allies among the other 35 to prefer Thurmond over Truman? I doubt it, considering that the majority were Republican. (I'm still looking for a breakdown of the House membership by party and state.)

But I doubt that Dewey's winning the election was the better world that he was talking about.

12:48:38 PM # Google It!
categories: Politics