I proposed to Mrs. Randolph that Houston and Fort Worth join forces and
support Buck and Randolph as a team. She said, "I don't know Raymond
Buck."
[Laughter] She said, "Of course, you
may address the Harris County caucus." So, Mr. Buck found out that he
wasn't going to get any liberal support and he knew that he wasn't going
to get any conservative support, so he didn't run.
[Laughter] They made him the temporary chairman of the state
convention then. That was all right, too, because he was fair. When we
got to the convention on Sunday, the convention was
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due to start on Tuesday morning and we went up on Sunday afternoon,
having made all our local caucus decisions Sunday afternoon, then a few
of us went immediately to Dallas to find out what was going on. The
first thing that I had to deal with was to go and tell Byron Skelton
that we weren't going to support him, because he thought we were. That
wasn't easy to do. But I found him and told him that I was sorry and
that he knew why and he said that he did. Then I looked around to see
where else I might get some information and on the way up the stairs, I
found out that Lyndon was pushing Mrs. Lloyd Bentsen for national
committeewoman. So, we got up to Ed Levy's suite, Ed Levy was the state
committeeman from Texarkana and my husband had served on the state
committee with him and he was a loyal, if not a very liberal, Democrat.
I knew some of the people and some I didn't and as soon as I came in,
they quit talking to each other. So, as soon as I got a drink in my
hand, I said, "Who is going to be the national committeewoman?" They
were sure that I was pledged to Frankie Randolph and so nobody would
rise to the bait and there was a long pause and somebody said, "Well,
who do you think it is going to be?" I said, "Well, I don't know, but it
sure isn't going to be Lloyd Bentsen."
[Laughter] Poor old Ed realized that there was tension in his
party, so he came wandering over with about his fifth drink in his hand
and he said, "Lloyd Bentsen can't be the national committeewoman, he's a
man."
[Laughter] That was the feminist point
that we tried to make during a good part of that convention, that
whichever woman became the national committeewoman should be someone who
had worked hard in the campaign, not someone whose husband was given the
committeewoman's seat as a consolation prize.