Harry Shuler Dent, Sr. (February 21, 1930 – October 2, 2007) was an American political strategist and father of financial prognosticator Harry S. Dent, Jr.. He is best known as the architect of the Republican Southern Strategy. The elder Dent worked for Strom Thurmond, Barry Goldwater, and Richard Nixon during the realignment of the Democratic and Republican parties starting in the Civil Rights era, and for Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush later on.