Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - 1948 was the only year political party leadership mattered in Alabama

 All politics is now nationally party-driven in most of the country and definitely in Alabama.  Alabama is a one-party state when it comes to national and state general elections. For about 80 years, we were a one-party Democratic state. For the past 60 years, we have become a one-party Republican state in presidential elections.

  Republican candidates are always going to win state offices in Alabama, and the Republican nominee is always going to carry Alabama. It is because of the philosophy of the two parties regarding national affairs. All politics are national. 

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - The Dixiecrats and the 1948 Truman election

  The year 1948 was an interesting and momentous year in southern politics. World War II had just ended. The king of American politics, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had passed away in Warm Springs, Georgia.  

  FDR had reigned omnipotently as president from 1932-1945. His vice president was an obscure, peculiar-looking Missourian named Harry Truman. Truman had been a haberdasher in Independence, Missouri who had gone broke selling men’s clothing. The legendary St. Louis Pendergrass political machine took Truman in and made him a U.S. Senator.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Eric Cantor's exit

  This year’s state primary elections have brought very little drama or surprises. However, there have been the inevitable novel surprises nationwide.