the problem to the answer

{excerpt, Convention, by Richard Reeves}------- "That's obviously impossible, so it will not be hard to get bombs in there -- plastic, carrying the parts separately.  The best defense is keeping your eyes open."

Your eyes and Sally's.  At that moment Sally, a nine-year-old black Labrador retriever, was being walked through the seats of the New Jersey delegation by a New York patrolman, Ronald McLean.  Sally...was a NYPD bomb sniffer -- she and a German shepherd partner named Brandy were just about the only way of finding plastic bombs, which had no metal parts.  The dogs' sense of smell was supposed to be seven times better than human noses, and they were trained daily by searching for hidden sticks of dynamite and were rewarded with dog biscuits when they found them.

The night before, in an eight-hour sweep of the building from the roof to the subbasement, an Army Explosives Ordnance Disposal team had found a device hidden in a filing cabinet in a first-floor office.  With bomb threats already coming in at a rate of more than a dozen a day, Dan Courtenay and Richard Jordan, the Secret Service agent in charge, were called in to examine the timer, a small clock taped to a Coca-Cola can.  It was a phony.  Within two hours, it had been traced to a television reporter who planned to do a story on how he had fooled the Secret Sservice.  He was told that if he tried to fool them again, he might be doing stories from Leavenworth, Kansas.

Jordan, who was in charge of the Secret Service's Chicago office, had worked his first convention in 1960, guarding Vice-President Richard Nixon.  He had begun poring over blueprints of Madison Square Garden in November and had moved into a New York apartment on June 1.  Riding in from La Guardia Airport that day, his cab driver said:  "You know, the Democratic Convention is coming to town next month."

"Sure," Jordan said, "I just read something in the paper about it."
"I guess they're expecting trouble."
"Is that right?"
Yeah," the cabbie said, "I heard they're gonna build an electric fence around Madison Square Garden.  If you try to get over it, it won't kill you, just hurt you."

The Secret Service agent thought to himself:  "Just keep thinking that, baby.  Spread the word."


Sal Lividini hoped the Convention and publicity would somehow change things at the old 1,800-room Statler Hilton.  "There are three rules for running a good hotel," he said, "location, location, and location."  For 20 years, as the trains stopped running to Penn Station, the Statler had had a lousy location.  But this week, he had the best location in the world, with television cameras ringing the building and the lobby.

But instead of being on television -- and attracting the attention that might get him the first-line Hilton hotel he wanted -- the little manager was being nibbled to death by stuck elevators and escalators, Hare Krishna beggars slipping in and out of the lobby like bald moths, and one bomb threat after another.  Some of the bomb threats coming to John Sabo, the day assistant manager stationed at a desk in the middle of the crowded lobby, were coming from phones inside the house:  "Some delegates!"---------------{end excerpt}

At the end of his 1977, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich-published book Convention, Richard Reeves includes, by state or territory, the votes and delegate numbers for each candidate, first after the state contest, then the Convention vote. -- I was reflexively inclined to SKIP that list, as I tend to do with most lists, charts, diagrams, and maps but then I said, "No, hold on...."  And I started reading them through, boring and drudge-like though that seemed at first, because realized by reading that you can actually experience, in an impactful way, how the voting process, in the primaries, & at the Convention, works.

How democracy trudges along, voting and counting.

How the Will Of The People begins with -- here's a Variety of candidates -- they all have their say and shake your hand! -- but (and?) then must progress to WHO'S GONNA RUN?  Whad-re we doin-here, time t' gedd-organdized.
It starts with a bunch of different ideas (candidates) and then, by rule, by process, by work, by campaigning, by the Will Of The People, rolls over into -- OK, here we go.  This dude be our candidate.

The author has them listed in chronological order.

{excerpt - Convention's Appendix A}
IOWA
January 19
Democrats attending precinct caucuses gave Carter 28 percent of the vote to 13 percent for Birch Bayh, 10 for Fred Harris, 6 for Morris Udall, 3 for Sargent Shriver, 1 for Henry Jackson.  Thirty-seven percent was uncommitted.

Delegate count before June 10:  Carter--20; Udall--12; Harris--2; uncommitted--13.

Convention vote:  Carter--25; Udall--20; Edmund Brown--1; Edward Kennedy--1.
[[Edmund Brown?? shrug...]]

MISSISSIPPI
January 24
Precinct caucuses gave George Wallace 44 percent of the vote to 14 percent for Carter, 12 for Shriver, 2 for Lloyd Bentsen, 1 for Harris.  Twenty-seven percent was uncommitted.

Delegate count before June 10:  Wallace--11; Carter--5; Shriver--4; uncommitted--4.

Convention vote:  Carter--23; abstaining--1.

MAINE
February 7
Municipal caucuses gave Carter 26 percent of the vote to 4 percent for Harris, 4 for Udall, 1 for Bayh.  Sixty-four percent was uncommitted.

Delegate count before June 10; Carter--9; Udall--5; uncommitted--6.

Convention vote:  Carter--15; Udall--5.

OKLAHOMA
February 7
Precinct caucuses gave Carter 18 percent of the vote to 17 percent for Harris, 13 for Bentsen, 10 for Wallace.  Forty percent was uncommitted.

Delegate count before June 10:  Carter--12; Harris--7; uncommitted--18.

Convention vote:  Carter--32; Harris--3; Barbara Jordan--1; Udall--1.

ALASKA
February 10
Precinct caucuses gave Jackson 6 percent of the vote to 4 percent for Carter.  Ninety percent was uncommitted.

Delegate count before June 10:  uncommitted--10.

Convention vote:  Carter--10.

MINNESOTA
February 24
Precinct caucuses gave Hubert Humphrey 51 percent of the vote to 4 percent for Harris, 2 for Udall.  Forty-two percent was uncommitted.

Delegate count before June 10:  Humphrey--48; uncommitted--17.

Convention vote:  Carter--37; Ellen McCormack--11; Humphrey--9; Harris--4; Udall--2; Brown--1; Fred Stover--1.

NEW HAMPSHIRE
February 24
Carter won the primary election with 30 percent of the vote to 24 percent for Udall, 16 for Bayh, 11 for Harris, 9 for Shriver, 6 for Humphrey.

Delegate count before June 10:  Carter--15; Udall--2.

Convention vote:  Carter--15; Udall--2.

SOUTH CAROLINA
February 28
Precinct caucuses gave Wallace 28 percent of the vote to 23 percent for Carter.  Forty-eight percent was uncommitted.

Delegate count before June 10:  Carter--9; Wallace--8; Frank Church--1; uncommitted--13.

Convention vote:  Carter--28; Wallace--2; Brown--1.
-----------{end App. A excerpt}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Too many broken hearts have fallen in the river
Too many lonely souls have drifted out to sea,
You lay your bets and then you pay the price
The things we do for love, the things we do for love.

Communication is the problem to the answer
You've got her number and your hand is on the phone
The weather's turned and all the lines are down
The things we do for love, the things we do for love.

Like walking in the rain and the snow
When there's nowhere to go
And you're feelin' like a part of you is dying
And you're looking for the answer in her eyes.

You think you're gonna break up
Then she says she wants to make up.

Ooh you made me love you
Ooh you've got a way ...

["The Things We Do For Love," recorded--10cc; written--Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman; Released, 1976.]

-30-