Vice-Presidential Candidate
The Democratic Party nominated Harry S. Truman in the 1948 presidential election, whose platform was strongly in favor of civil rights. In opposition to this, Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina helped organize walkout delegates from the 1948 Democratic Convention into a separate party, the States' Rights Democratic Party (popularly known as the 'Dixiecrats'). The party held their own Convention in Birmingham, Alabama, where they nominated Thurmond for president with Governor Wright as his running mate. Dixiecrat leaders worked to have Thurmond and Wright declared the official Democratic candidates. Their efforts succeeded in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, but in all other states Thurmond and Wright were forced to run as third party candidates. On election day the States' Rights Democratic Party carried the four states, with 1,169,021 popular votes and 39 electoral votes.
Read more about this topic: Fielding L. Wright
Famous quotes containing the word candidate:
“We have fought too much rhetoric and red tape to be lulled and comforted by a paid political advertisement showing a candidate tossing his grandchild in the air while a disembodied voice espouses “family values” in the background.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)