No southerner had been elected President for more than a century, and it was a bitter article of faith among southern politicians that no southerner would be elected President in any foreseeable future; when members of the House of Representatives gave their Speaker, Sam Rayburn, ruler of the House for more than two decades, a limousine as a present, attached to the back of the front seat was a plaque that read 'To Our Beloved Sam Rayburn - Who Would Have Been President If He Had Come From Any Place but the South. Robert A. Caro
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The South had a reputation as a place where people could safely be racist, because those from the South would not be elected into high office. It was a counter-intuitive view that made little sense to those from other regions, but it was a belief that seemed to be borne out by history. In many ways, the South had been an economic and political backwater for much of the nation's history. By the 1960s, however, it had recently become an industrial powerhouse that was attracting new industry and new people to its cities. At the same time, the region had lost its political influence.

Source: Robert A. Caros The Years Of Lyndon Johnson Set: The Path To Power; Means Of Ascent; Master Of The Senate; The Passage Of Power

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