"In his book Invisible Bridge, historian Rick Perlstein looked at some of the perks these individuals received:
One obscure Republican official from Suffolk County, New York, emerged from a ten-minute audience announcing that the Leader of the Free World had agreed to take a closer look at the problems of his local sewage district. And when the queen of England arrived at the White House for a sumptuous state dinner, the gentleman the president chose to seat her next to was Clarke Reed, chairman of the largest uncommitted delegation — Mississippi’s, with thirty convention votes.
“I’ve gotten several calls but I can’t say I’ve really gotten any pressure,” uncommitted South Carolina delegate Sherry Shealy Martschink told UPI in June 1976. She added, however, that she had been invited to the White House for a dinner with the King of Spain.
A political cartoon that ran on June 21 of that year captured some of the attention uncommitted delegates were getting from the president.
Google News Archive
The Victoria Advocate, June 21, 1976.
Uncommitted GOP Delegates Are About To Become The New Political 'It Girls'
"But South Dakota is in an unusual position because over the weekend it became one of the first states to name its full slate of convention delegates — a move that immediately plunged it into a three-way tug of war among the remaining presidential candidates.
Trump and Cruz opted against sending their own envoys into the South Dakota fray. But all three campaigns have been mobilizing staff and preparing for a nationwide organizing battle to ensure that their own loyalists win elections to become delegates to the convention. The campaign with the most success in this shadow campaign is likely to have an edge should the national convention become a once-in-a-generation floor fight among delegates.
For now, Cruz can take heart that even if South Dakota votes for Trump in June — binding nearly all 29 delegates to back the New York billionaire on the first ballot — the delegates signaled they're with him at heart.
"I have a preference for Cruz," said Matt Bruner, a Republican precinct chairman from White. "Right now, seeing Kasich in there — Kasich is in the race for nothing other than a hope and prayer. ... It's very, very much a Cruz delegation."
The Cruz edge in South Dakota could be significant if Trump scores a primary win there on June 7. State party procedures require 26 of the state's 29 delegates to vote for the popular vote-getter on the first ballot in Cleveland. All 26 delegates signed a legally binding oath to fulfill that responsibility on Saturday. But Trump could find himself in a hole in a contested convention if members of the South Dakota "
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Shadow campaign to deny Trump his delegates begins - POLITICO
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Shadow campaign to deny Trump his delegates begins - POLITICO
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