Sublime

Johnson was Four Factor, because he tended to exaggerate and therefore everything he said needed to be divided by four.

“Johnson did not win that election,” he said. “It was stolen for him.” And, he said, he, Luis Salas, had participated in the stealing. Three days after the election, he said, he was summoned to George Parr’s office in San Diego, where he found the Duke, Ed Lloyd, Alice City Commissioner Bruce Ainsworth—and Lyndon Johnson. Johnson, according to Sala

Johnson accomplished this transformation not by the pronouncement or fiat or order that is the method of executive initiative, but out of the very nature and fabric of the legislative process itself. He was not only the youngest but the greatest Senate Leader in America’s history. His colleagues called him Leader.

Out on the campaign trail, Mann realized that the shift was continuing—and accelerating. He knew—and Austin knew—that Johnson was going to win. THEN, HOWEVER, a twenty-ninth candidate, Governor O’Daniel, entered the race—and any resemblance to Johnson’s first, victorious, campaign ended on the spot.

Johnson’s voting record—a record twenty years long, dating back to his arrival in the House of Representatives in 1937 and continuing up to that very day—was consistent with the accent and the word. During those twenty years, he had never supported civil rights legislation—any civil rights legislation.

Roughly ten thousand male sprinters—a number that includes runners who’ll never catch a whiff of a world class men’s race—have personal best times in the 100-meters faster than the current women’s Olympic champion.

But he was about to become—beginning in that summer of 1957—the greatest champion that the liberal senators, and Margaret Frost and the millions of other black Americans, had had since, almost a century before, there had been a President named Lincoln.