Steve Flowers: 1948 was the only year political party leadership mattered in Alabama

All politics is now nationally partisan driven in most of the country and definitely in Alabama. Alabama is a one-party state when it comes to national and state general elections. For about 80 years, we were a one-party Democratic state. For the past 60 years we have become a one-party Republican state in presidential elections.

Republican candidates are always going to win state offices in Alabama and the Republican nominee is always going to carry Alabama. It is because of the philosophy of the two parties regarding national affairs. All politics are national. 

George Wallace used to run around the country running for president when he was Governor of Alabama. On his Don Quixote quests as an Independent, he would often say there is not a dime’s worth of difference in the Democratic and Republican parties. Even in his demagoguing rhetoric, he could not say that with a straight face today. The Republican Party is very conservative. The Democratic Party is very liberal, and most Alabamians are very conservative. It is that simple.

Some naïve political writers want to place blame or give credit for election results on the backs of the Alabama Democratic Party leadership or the Alabama Republican Party leadership. The Alabama political parties have about as much relevance or influence on the results of the elections as an elephant or a donkey does. They have no power or influence on elections. Their only substantive purpose is to set the qualifying dates and rules. It is irrelevant who the Chairman of the Democratic Party or Republican Party is in Alabama, and it has always been that way. To criticize the party leadership in Alabama is like criticizing the PTO. They are doing a thankless, irrelevant, powerless job, and for someone to think they have relevance in a political campaign is revealing a naivete in the understanding of Alabama politics.

There has been one presidential contest in Alabama history where party leadership made a difference. The year was 1948. Race was the issue. Alabama and the South had voted straight Democratic for President for 80 years. However, the Democratic nominee for President, Harry Truman, had come out strongly for a pro Civil Rights platform. The solid South was about to become unhinged.

Mississippi and South Carolina were floating the idea of taking the South into a party called the Dixiecrats. Even though most white Democrats in Alabama were for segregation, they were not enamored with the idea of bolting the Party. There were two distinct groups in the state politically in 1948. There was a strong progressive contingency that was emboldened by and loyal to the national Democratic Party of Jefferson, Jackson and Roosevelt. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was revered in Alabama. All our congressional delegation were FDR New Deal Democrats.

However, the Democratic Party machinery was controlled by the conservative Black Belters who were allied with what would become the Dixiecrats. The Alabama Democratic chairman was the racist Gessner McCorvey. McCorvey enacted a policy that no Democratic elector or delegate from Alabama could support a candidate pledged to Civil Rights. It was enforced by a signed pledge. Alabamians selected a mixed bag of delegates to the Democratic Convention, who were elected because of popularity or name identification. So, when the national Democratic convention nominated Truman and adopted the civil rights plank in the platform, about half of the Alabama delegates followed McCorvey and walked out of the Convention, and the other half, who were progressives, stayed.

The racist group of McCorvey joined with the other Southern states and founded the Dixiecrat Party. They met in Convention at the Boutwell Auditorium in downtown Birmingham and nominated Strom Thurmond from South Carolina. Thurmond and the Dixiecrats would carry the five Deep South Southern states.

McCorvey and his racist Dixiecrats cleverly stole the rooster symbol of the state Democratic Party. In 1948, the candidates’ name was not on the ballot. One could only vote for the Party. Your choice was to either vote for the Republican Party or for the Democratic Party. Alabamians had been pulling the rooster for the Democratic Party all their lives. Whoever they voted for, Truman or Thurmond, will never be known. The state Democratic Party, controlled by McCorvey’s Dixiecrats, had basically hijacked the Party label. I suspect that more than a few Alabamians helped by the New Deal felt like they were voting for the national ticket and Truman. But the Alabama Democratic Party machine controlled by McCorvey voted in the election in Alabama’s Democratic Primary for Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond.

See you next week.

Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist.  His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers.  He served 16 years in the state legislature.  Steve may be reached at [email protected].