Seventy years ago, a political situation was brewing that left Georgia with three claimants to the governor's office in early 1947. By the time he won a fourth term in 1946, Eugene Talmadge, who had been in and out of office as governor twice since 1932, was very sick, but only those closest to him knew it. Meanwhile, the state's Constitution of 1945 had created the new office of lieutenant governor, which had not existed in Georgia since the colonial era.