Sublime

He had been able to bring to the Roosevelt re-election campaign a resource which no other Texan could offer: Herman Brown’s money. And he had used that resource as a base. Because he could provide that money to the Roosevelt campaign in Texas, he was given a commanding role in that campaign. Because he played that role, he was given input into the

PERHAPS THE CLEAREST illustration of this mastery was the struggle in which this entwining of personality and power was most vividly played out: the collision in 1957 between the seemingly irresistible political force that was Lyndon Baines Johnson and the seemingly immovable political object that was the United States Senate—the struggle in which

One was that he was a politician. In capitol corridors, Moses may have been a handicap to the Governor, but in voting booths the parks that he built were a priceless asset to Smith.

The most significant aspect of the first report of the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee was not its contents but the way it was presented. During his entire career, Lyndon Johnson had demonstrated, again and again, a remarkable proficiency in the mechanics of politics, in the lower-level, basic techniques that are essential to political success but

Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (New York: Knopf, 1982). Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate (New York: Knopf, 2002).

soldiered with the Communist leadership that would ultimately wrest control of the country from the Nationalists. While there, he became interested in Chinese guerilla operations against the Japanese, specifically the small-unit, “democratic” leadership model that pushed authority and responsibility down to the most junior levels in small combat

Caro’s question is: How does political power really work in America?

Once he asks it, it takes the wheel. Caro is willing to go broke to answer it.