Depending on the account you read, FDR was likely to pick James F. Byrnes as his VP in 1944. The official story is that this pick was nixed by ILGWU head Sidney Hillman, after the "Clear it with Sidney." conversation. Hillman, and Bronx Democratic leader Ed Flynn, opposed Byrnes, and he was opposed, in general, by all of labor, but he was supported by the South and by many mainstream Democrats. (In Harry Truman's autobiography,
Plain Speaking, Truman had a speech written to nominate Byrnes when party leaders approached him as a compromise candidate.)
Byrnes was an "experienced" candidate. He had been a Congressman, Senator from South Carolina, a SCOTUS Justice, SoS, and head of Office of Economic Stabilization and Office of War Mobilization. He was a conservative Democrat and a segregationist. His actual career took him away from the Democratic Party after he left the Truman Administration; as the Democratic Governor of SC, he supported Eisenhower in 1952 and supported Republicans for the rest of his life for President except for 1956 (when he supported Independent Harry Byrd). That path, however, would not have been likely IF Byrnes had been President after FDR's death. This begs several questions:
Would Byrnes have been nominated in 1948?
Not since 1896 had a sitting President been denied renomination that wanted it. Like 1896, Byrnes would have been a conservative Democrat (like Grover Cleveland) and would have had opposition from Henry A. Wallace and the Progressive Party if he were not dumped at the convention. If Byrnes had been President there would have been no Dixiecrat revolt, but the Progressive revolt would have attracted more votes than it did in 1948.
Whether or not Byrnes would have been nominated in 1948 would have been up in the air. My guess is that he would have moved leftward on some issues, but not others. Byrnes would have accommodated Organized Labor on a number of issues (though not Taft-Hartley), but he would not have advocated for an FEPC, and he would not have advocated for any Civil Rights proposals.
Would Byrnes have lost at the convention as President? My guess is (A) probably not, but (B) he would have had a tough fight and would have been saddled with a clear liberal running-mate. Had he been defeated at the convention it would have been quite possible that the Democratic parties of the Southern states would have named electors pledged to Byrnes and a Southern running mate (other than Thurmond, who came from his own state). Byrnes would likely have likely run as a 3rd party candidate had he been denied renomination. I am not sure how THAT scenario would have played out.
One thing that would have definitely been true in a Byrnes/Dewey race is that DEWEY would have been viewed as the more liberal candidate. A straight up Byrnes/Dewey race would have been a Dewey blowout.
In the end, liberal voters would have deserted the Democrats for Dewey. Now let's see what would have happened had Byrnes run as a 3rd party candidate:
These results would have been skewed, but it's likely that Byrnes would have taken enough votes from Wallace to give Dewey victories in all sorts of states that would have otherwise went to Truman.
But it's hard to say. We've never had THIS conservative a Democrat be nominated since Buchanan.
