Sublime

In July, he took on a new role. There was one asset that only he among the Texas Congressmen possessed: Charles Marsh’s friendship. Texas newspapers were overwhelmingly anti-Roosevelt, but Marsh’s six Texas newspapers, including the influential paper in the state capital, were for him. The publisher of six pro-Roosevelt Texas dailies had very littl

“He was interested in what today we would call the degree of strength support, in trends and in interest in [specific] issues,” John Connally says. Issues, to Johnson, had never been anything more than campaign fodder; caring about none himself, he had, in every campaign he had run, simply tested, and discarded, one issue after another until he fou

The 1824 election came down to a contest between a member of the English elite, John Quincy Adams, and a member of the Scots-Irish lower class, Andrew Jackson.

“John F. Kennedy could not have been elected President without the South,” Evans and Novak were to conclude. “Could he have carried enough southern states to win” without Johnson on the ticket? “Probably not.” “The key to the election had been in the South,” said U.S. News & World Report. “And this was the land of Lyndon Johnson. It had backed

Asked by a reporter whether Church’s addendum would strip away any of the Republican votes, the Republican Leader said he thought not. That morning, copies of the brotherhoods’ telegram were delivered to the offices of individual senators, to be followed by visits from Cy Anderson and other union lobbyists. Pastore’s logic had had time to sink in.

good democrat.” Jefferson

Which was not strictly true—Johnson never found anything gladdening about political defeat. But it says much about his commitment to doing the right thing that he was willing even to entertain the possibility of sacrificing the presidency itself for the cause of a single bill.

Johnson may have been aware before the convention of the depth of northern antipathy to him, of the implacability of liberal resolve to deny power to him, or to any other southern candidate. He could hardly have been unaware of this reality, having watched from a ringside seat as it crushed Richard Russell in 1952. But just as Russell had not under

In October 1955, Joe asked Tommy Corcoran, a prominent Washington “fixer” and friend of LBJ’s from the New Deal days, to carry a message to Johnson. If Lyndon would declare for the presidency and privately promise to take Jack as his running mate, Joe would arrange financing for the campaign. Because raising enough money would not be easy for any D