La victòria demòcrata ha situat un exmembre del Ku Kux Klan, el senador demòcrata per West Virginia Robert C. Byrd, en el tercer lloc en la línea de successió de la presidència dels Estats Units (Via Little Green Footballs).A començaments de la dècada dels quaranta del segle passat, amb 24 anys, Robert C. Byrd va ingressar al Ku Kux Klan. En va ser un membre actiu, tot i que anys després se’n va penedir. La seva història la trobareu a Wikipedia.
In the early 1940s, when Byrd was 24 years old, he joined the Ku Klux Klan, which he had seen holding parades in Matoaka, West Virginia, as a child. His father had also been a Klan member[1]. Byrd was unanimously elected to be the leader, known as the Exalted Cyclops, of his local chapter.
Byrd, in his autobiography, attributed the beginnings of his political career to this incident, although he lamented that they involved the Klan. According to Byrd's recollection, Klan official Joel L. Baskin told him, "You have a talent for leadership, Bob... The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." Byrd recalls that "suddenly lights flashed in my mind! Someone important had recognized my abilities. I was only 23 or 24, and the thought of a political career had never struck me. But strike me that night, it did." He participated in the KKK for a period of time during World War II, holding the titles "Kleagle", which indicated a Klan recruiter, and "Exalted Cyclops". Byrd did not serve in the military during the war, working instead as a welder in a Baltimore shipyard, assembling warships.
Byrd commented on the 1945 controversy raging over the idea of racially integrating the military. In his book When Jim Crow Met John Bull[3], Graham Smith referred to a letter written that year by Byrd, when he was 28 years old, to segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, in which Byrd vowed never to fight:"with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
When running for Congress in 1952, he announced, "After about a year, I became disinterested, quit paying my dues, and dropped my membership in the organization. During the nine years that have followed, I have never been interested in the Klan." During this campaign, "Byrd went on the radio to acknowledge that he belonged to the Klan from 'mid-1942 to early 1943,' according to newspaper accounts. He explained that he had joined 'because it offered excitement and because it was strongly opposed to communism.' "
