Some Southerners wanted to use Byrd to get concessions from JFK on race.

Hubert Humphrey ended the vice president drought in 1965.

Strom Thurmond, in fact, called the Democratic platform in 1960 a "road map for socialism," and refused to endorse JFK.

Rocky was dumped from the ticket under pressure from conservatives. Credit: Collection of Ken Rudin

WEB EXTRA Jan. 14, 2004 -- I love politics. Now, that's not going to come as a shock to those who know my work as political editor for NPR, or who used to read my online columns for The Washington Post, or who remember me when I was editor of The Hotline or when I covered campaigns for ABC News. I love the candidates, the voters, the process and -- most of all -- I love the history. I can't talk baseball (another passion) without reaching back into the past, and I'm the same about politics.

I can't look at the New Hampshire primary without thinking of Ronald Reagan insisting that he "paid for that microphone," or the kids who showered and cut their hair for Eugene McCarthy in his improbable challenge to President Johnson, or Bob Dole growling that George Bush should "stop lying about my record." Talking about politics, as with baseball, is timeless. (Pete Rose? See Jackson, Shoeless Joe.)

But at the same time, if we focus only on the past, we fail to understand the present and are unprepared for the future. So yes, I look at an outsider like Howard Dean jumping to the front of the pack and I think of Jimmy Carter. I read about whether Dick Cheney will be on the 2004 ticket and I drift back to thoughts of what happened to Henry Wallace in 1944.

I also want to talk about what's going on right now. How important will the results in Iowa be? Does the retirement of five Democrats in the South mean Republicans will increase their majority in the Senate? Who are the most vulnerable House incumbents?

And so NPR has decided to bring back my interactive column that ran for three years at Washingtonpost.com. The idea is to solicit questions from readers about campaigns past and present, local and national. The answers, as always, will be supplemented with items from my vast campaign button collection. No question, as you'll soon learn, is too trivial. That's what a political junkie loves: the horse race, the history, the minutiae, the campaign lore. And that's what "Political Junkie" will be about.

Send me your questions and I will try to get to as many as possible per column. Not every question can be personally answered, but I will guarantee every one will be read.

In the meantime, thousands of readers have continued to send me questions. This inaugural column will begin with some of those.

Q: In the presidential election of 1956, the four Southern states that were carried by Strom Thurmond in 1948 gave nearly 200,000 votes to "independent" electors. Was this a forerunner of the Unpledged Elector movement that came close to throwing the election of 1960 into the House? -- Randy Richardson, Grand Junction, Colo.

A: Many who were behind Thurmond's states rights' campaign for president in 1948 were hoping for a similar effort in '56. Some Southern conservatives were upset with the civil rights platform of the Democratic presidential ticket that year: Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver. By supporting an unpledged slate of electors, they never expected to win or come close to winning. They simply wanted to hold back their electoral vote strength in exchange for concessions on race and states rights issues.

Nor did they settle on a candidate. Many preferred Virginia Sen. Harry Flood Byrd, but Byrd said he wouldn't run. Democrat Thurmond, who in the fall of '56 had just resigned his Senate seat on principle but was nonetheless running to fill the remaining four years of a term, backed the effort. Ultimately, they came away with only one electoral vote, that from a "faithless" Stevenson elector in Alabama. By the way, Thurmond and Byrd were among those lawmakers who signed a "Southern Manifesto" that year opposing the Supreme Court’s rulings on race and integration.

The same tactic was employed in 1960, with better -- though not much better -- results. Again, these Southerners did not agree on a candidate of their own; but they were not going to accept the pro-civil rights candidacy of Sen. John F. Kennedy. Thurmond, in fact, called the Democratic platform that year a "road map for socialism," and refused to endorse JFK. The Virginia delegation again backed Sen. Byrd, who once again refused to run but who also refused to lift a finger for Kennedy. After Kennedy squeaked through in November, Southern conservatives tried in the days after the vote to convince electors from the South to join their cause and deny JFK his vote in the electoral college. But when the electoral votes were cast, the insurgents could muster only 15 electors -- all of whom voted for Byrd.

Q: After John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Lyndon Johnson became president. But did Johnson appoint a vice president immediately? Or did he wait until 1964? Did the country go without a vice president for a month? -- Don MacGregor, Riverwoods, Ill.

A: In November 1963, there was no vehicle in the Constitution that allowed a president to name his vice president in case of a vacancy. That wouldn't be remedied until 1967, with the ratification of the 25th Amendment. That amendment allowed President Richard Nixon to select Gerald Ford as his vice president following the resignation of Spiro Agnew in 1973, and Ford to pick Nelson Rockefeller a year later in the events that followed Nixon's own abdication. Thus, the nation went without a vice president from the time of JFK's assassination until President Johnson and Hubert Humphrey were inaugurated on Jan. 20, 1965. That scenario was similar to what happened following the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Harry Truman had no vice president for nearly four years, from April 1945 until January 1949, when the winning 1948 ticket of Truman and Alben Barkley was sworn in.

Q: After Nelson Rockefeller's death, President Ford did not name a successor as vice president. What were his reasons for doing this? -- Mike Edwards, Perth, Western Australia

A: Rockefeller was no longer vice president when he died on Jan. 26, 1979. Appointed by Ford in '74 in the wake of Watergate, Rocky was seen by GOP conservatives as a liability for the Republican ticket in 1976. Under pressure from the right, Ford dumped Rockefeller as his running mate and chose Kansas Sen. Bob Dole at the 1976 convention in Kansas City.

Email your politics questions to Ken Rudin at politicaljunkie@npr.org.