Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-10975360-20140421002559/@comment-32656-20140429103208

Got it from reality. The movement to replace him was led by the heads of the Democratic Party in Chicago and NYC, and other big city party bosses. Not the South. Whatsoever. They are the ones that supported Wallace.

Only Roosevelt wanted Byrnes, if he could not have Wallace. No one else did. Hence, why he was not supported and got no votes at the convention. He was nowhere close to it. To say that he was a "realistic alternative" in any form is simply not true.

If Truman is not the VP slot, Scott Lucas of Illinois is the likely one to hold it instead.

Wallace placed first on that ballot only through the majority being stubborn - he was nowhere close to clinching it - and that the next ballots went to Truman speaks volumes. Wallace would not get it in any "Progressive" Party, either. His views, even in such a party, would not be considered "mainstream."

Neither party, even with it being the Dems and Progs, would be consistently anything. You are mistaking the modern era with the 1940s.

Again: Wallace would not have the VP nomination in 1944. And he sure as heck would not have won a 1948 election.

To have Ike as anything but a Progressive here is, quite frankly, insulting to the man and goes against quite literally everything he stood for, and would have stood for atl. About the equivalent of what an argument for Obama joining the Repubs would get you.

Progressives, given farming policies, would be much more popular in the south than you think. In 1912, for example, Roosevelt polled rather well in much of the south. A party based on those policies would better his results after that date.

South would never go solidly Progressive. Something more Clintonian would be likely.

Once again: Wallace in no position to have power. Ike would enact the same reforms in the 1950s.

Misread the dates with regards to Reagan. Apologies. Doesn't change the point, however - he would not have gotten the nomination, and even if he had, would sure as heck have lost the election. He was treated as one of the also-rans - i.e. not a really serious contender - in 1968. He had less than two years of experience in any government by that time - rendering him unelectable.