ABSTRACT
“Collecting delegates is just like washin’ dirty dishes,” Peter O’Donnell said, one hand holding an imaginary dishmop, laboriously swabbing an imaginery dish in the other, “you gotta take ’em one by one.” All eyes in the room, including Richard Nixon’s, watched the Republican state chairman of Texas, who helped capture the 1964 Convention for Goldwater, finish his little pantomime: O’Donnell gently shook the water off the sparkling-clean dish and carefully stacked it on top of the other delegate dishes.
