The Democrats were further fractured when a coalition of liberals led by Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota inserted a strong civil rights plank, modeled after Truman’s own proposals to Congress, in the platform. Delegates from the conservative South, intent on maintaining segregation there, were adamantly opposed to the plank. Before the nominating process even began, Alabama’s Handy Ellis announced that his state’s presidential electors were "never to cast a vote for Harry Truman, and never to cast their vote for any candidate with a civil rights program such as adopted by the convention." Half of the Alabama delegation and the entire Mississippi contingent walked out. Two days later, disaffected southern Democrats met in Birmingham, Alabama, to nominate Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for president. The new party officially called itself the States’ Rights Democrats; the press dubbed them "Dixiecrats," and the name stuck. The "Solid South"–a traditional Democratic stronghold–seemed lost to Truman. Meanwhile, on July 27, the Progressive Party nominated Henry Wallace for president.

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Truman, who picked Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky as his running mate, was undeterred by the defections from his party. For his convention acceptance speech, the president used only an outline written in short, punchy sentences. He electrified the audience when he said, "Senator Barkley and I will win this election and make the Republicans like it–don’t you forget it." It was the first time during the convention that anyone had spoken of actually winning. Truman then praised the higher wages, higher farm income, and greater benefits for Americans he claimed as Democratic accomplishments, and went on to condemn the Republican Congress. He spoke with scorn of the recently adopted Republican platform, contrasting the programs it contained with congressional inaction on similar programs he had proposed.

Truman roused the convention to a standing ovation when he announced his intention to call Congress back into special session to "ask them to pass the laws to halt rising prices, to meet the housing crisis–which they say they are for in their platform." When this special session did convene it accomplished little, as Truman expected, but it gave the president a campaign issue. The country’s woes, he asserted, were the result of the "do-nothing" Republican Congress.

Truman expected to run on issues. He had already begun running for reelection when he gave his State of the Union speech on January 7, 1948, and continued with a cross-country trip a month before the Democratic convention. Officially, he made the journey to accept an honorary degree from the University of California. Though he normally flew, this time Truman went by train, which allowed him to pass through 18 states, speaking from the back platform at stops along the way.

Truman traveled in a special car, the Ferdinand Magellan, originally designed for President Roosevelt. It contained sleeping quarters, a galley and dining room, bath, and a walnut-paneled sitting room. Armor-plated and equipped with a special speaker system for addressing crowds, the Magellan would be Truman’s traveling office throughout the campaign. The train also included a dining car converted into an office for staff, a special car for the Signal Corps to keep the president in touch with Washington, and another car for the press.

By the time Truman returned to Washington from this "nonpolitical" trip, he had covered 9,504 miles and made 73 speeches at stops in small towns and cities, in which he hammered away at "the do-nothing Congress." When Republican Senator Robert Taft complained in a speech about the spectacle of a president maligning Congress at every "whistle-stop" around the country, the Democratic campaign staff pounced on the remark. They telegraphed leaders in 35 communities in which the president had spoken and asked if they agreed with the Senator’s demeaning characterization of their towns. The response of the head of the Chamber of Commerce in Laramie, Wyoming, was typical: "Characteristically, Senator Taft is confused." A new term, "whistle-stop tour," entered the American political lexicon.

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