LIFE’s Best Convention Photos: The GOP

LIFE.com presents a selection of LIFE’s best pictures from the GOP’s national conventions across several decades. More than a few famous GOP stalwarts are here — Ike, Nixon, Goldwater, Thomas Dewey — as are other long-forgotten pols who were players in their day, as well as the folks who, in the end, provide both parties' conventions with their real energy and, let's face it, their often surprising level of fun: namely, the shouting, laughing, weirdly garbed, wide-eyed delegates.