Word: fdp
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Washington D.C. the lobbying situation was equally chaotic. Congress remained in session nearly all summer, presenting District civil rights groups with an opportunity to convince, cajole, and inform hundreds of important Democrats. At one point three independent teams of lobbyists were scouring the Hill for the FDP, but lack of coordination led to duplication of effort and endless embarrassment. Without leadership from the Party, the activity was clearly futile, and eventually it disintegrated...
Officially, Party leaders justified the directive by claiming concern that the press was beginning to view the FDP as a civil rights project based in New York or Washington rather than as a political movement indigenous to Mississippi. There were also three unofficial, but more substantial, reasons for the directive...
First, many Northern lobbyists had proven rather imaginative in describing the Party to delegates, at times hinting that the FDP group in Atlantic City would be 50% white. Understandably, the Party wished to squelch such rumors at their source. Second, the Goldwater nomination had impressed FDP leaders with the importance of a Democratic victory in November, and there was acute worry that overzealous lobbying might turn the "Mississippi question" into a wedge between quarelling party factions in key states like New York and California...
More important than these two, however, was a third, less noble, reason for the directive; the suspicious, paranoic, militance which propelled the Party. White allies, including Northern lobbyists, were viewed less as assets than as conspirators waiting to exploit the FDP for selfish ends. The Party seemed to prefer testing its friends to using them constructively...
...Joseph Rauh quietly took over. Vice-Chairman of ADA and leader of the Democratic Party in Washington, Rauh spent most of July preparing the FDP's legal case for the Credentials Committee. With the approach of August, he also assumed responsibility for gathering Northern delegate strength. It was a difficult task, since the President was actively working for the "traditional" delegation...