The hotel was the center of politics. Early in its life it was festooned with a Westmoreland Davis for Governor banner, and sometime in the early 19th century, it became headquarters for the state's Democratic party, with offices in the hotel's historic Parlor A. From the ballroom in 1926, the first Harry Byrd took control of the state with his famed Byrd Machine. At his inauguration party on the hotel's roof garden, he addressed the state on WRVA. In 1933, Gov. William M. Tuck set up an office in the bu, and it was there Harry Byrd took over the seat of his father. It was, according to historian Jim Latimer, the room with the best view of the State Capitol and Executive Mansion. From the room, the final five Byrd governors (Battle, Stanley, J. Lindsay Almond, Albertis Harrison and Mills Godwin) ran their successful campaigns, such was the room's mystique. In the 1970s, the building was the site of the state's tourism marketing efforts including the historic "Virginia Is For Lovers" campaign.