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I have always thought HST was the most overrated of presidents. But it has been the Republicans who have helped to strengthen his reputation over the years. Goldwater cited HST as his favorite president even as HST was denouncing Goldwater and speaking out for LBJ and HHH. Reagan often quoted HST. I am unable to recall any Democrats extolling Dewey, though former Senator Paul Simon admitted that he voted for Dewey over HST. And when a Republican legislative leader extols Thurmond on his 100th birthday, all hell breaks loose. Remember, HST scolded Vice President Alben W. Barkley for waving at Thurmond as the 1949 inaugural parade passed the SC governor, standing with the spectators. HST called Thurmond an "SOB."

Indeed, just like with FDR, it is Republican leaders who can be heard seeing the praises of Communist appeasers FDR and Truman. FDR and Truman not only brought us Communist China, Communist North Korea, Communist Vietnam, and Communist Eastern Europe and a superpower Soviet Union, but brought us quite a bit of socialist programs at home whether it was FDR's New Deal or Truman's Fair Deal. Why? Probably just pandering to the socialist Communist appeaser vote which they must think remains strong in America today. Truman scolded Thurmond as an SOB? Well, that goes far to increase Thurmond's reputation in my opinion.

Something else: ALL or virtually all southern politicians were segregationists in 1948. Even as late as 1966, most southern politicians were still nominal segregationists. The Republican candidate for governor of GA in 1966, Congressman Howard "Bo" Callaway, opposing the overtly segregationist Lester Garfield Maddox, refused to renounce segregation. Callaway led in the GA popular vote but fell short of a majority, and the segregationist legislature then chose segregationist Maddox. I believe that many GA Republicans now say that Maddox was the best governor of their lifetimes, considering some of the characters who came after him. But they don't say that because Maddox was a segregationist.

As far as Senators Al Gore, Sr., and William Fulbright, they were NOMINAL segregationists. I personally think both men decried segregation, but it was too risky during their tenure in the Senate to denounce segregation. Had they done so, they would have likely lost renomination to a segregationist Democrat in their next primary election. We later learned, after his death, that the MS Democrat Senator James O. Eastland was a segregationist only for political reasons. He had been contributing to the NAACP all of those years! Thurmond switched to the GOP in 1964. He remained segregationist only until 1970, after which he dropped his segregationist position. By 1970, there were no more segregationist politicians in the South -- in either party, to my knowledge.