John D. Burwin (Napoleon's World)

John Douglas Burwin (b. April 11th, 1939) was the 40th President of the United States of America, serving between January 20th, 1993 and January 20th, 1997. Prior to the Presidency, Burwin was the Governor of Sequoyah, serving from 1982-1990. Burwin is significant as the first Southern Democrat elected since Richard Russell in 1952, and the first Democrat to win a Presidential election since Adam Eisler in 1976, and the only Democrat to ever win the Presidency without also winning the popular vote.

Early Campaigning
Burwin, as early as 1990, was reportedly planning his election committee. He was, however, by no means considered a front-runner; New York Governor Mario Cuomo and 1988 Vice Presidential Candidate Terry Connors were expected to lock horns in the coming battle. Due to the rising unpopularity of President Redford, especially following the early 1991 John Lipcourt scandal, Democrats were pouncing at the opportunity to run in an election they expected to win. Even fringe candidates, such as both of Joseph Kennedy, Jr.'s sons running against each other despite representing the same state, were common.

Burwin's edge over both Cuomo and Connors was his appeal to the Democratic South, which had strongly abandoned even its Nationalist candidates following two decades of support for civil rights from the National Party. While integration was a long-closed issue, equality was still a hot-button issue and Bill Cosby's 1991 assassination had left the Civil Front, and the civil rights movement as a whole, swirling and searching for leadership. Redford's attempted assumption of that role had made him unpopular in the South, a region he desperately needed to appeal to as the economic sector in the Midwest and West weakened.

Burwin was a conservative Democrat and he ran as one; while personally supportive of integration, even having fought cases for minorities in the 70's and having made equality in Sequoyah his goal as Governor to bring black voters to the Democratic Party, Burwin recognized the shifting atttitude in the South towards protecting economic power instead of subjugating racially. Even before critical primaries had begun, Burwin had positioned himself in the South as the go-to man; on top of that, he began making forays to the left-leaning liberals of New England and the West Coast that he would forward their economic goals as well. By the time the harsh 1991 recession hit in the fall of '91, Burwin had built up a strong grassroots campaign in the North and was the toast of the town in most Southern states.