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Doris Kearns Goodwin on Obama's 'Johnson Moment'
Cecil W. Stoughton, The White House / AP Photo
As Barack Obama aims to turn his presidency from the bully pulpit to bullying Congress on health care, White House aides have found in President Lyndon Baines Johnson the historical example of how a president should behave. Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who served as a White House fellow during the Johnson administration and assisted LBJ with his memoirs, tells The Daily Beast that Obama will need to find his "Johnson moment."
[Johnson] often said that Congress had to be with you on the takeoff so they'd be with you on the landing. That philosophy Obama followed in giving Congress a leadership role in drafting the health care bill. After the debacle of the Clinton administration's secret task force it made double sense. And add to that the understanding that Democrats on the Hill have been waiting for years for their moment in the sun.
LBJ also understood that the president was the ultimate weapon and thus had to be held in reserve until the moment was right, but this is the critical moment we are at today. This is the moment, LBJ would suggest, when the president has to take charge, to draw lines, to pressure, to threaten, to cajole, to exert every resource of leadership he has—to put pressure on wavering Democrats to make it clear that losing health care will be a huge blow not only to him but to all Democrats who were brought into office on the promise of big change, and particularly on health care.
LBJ used to have big charts where he could know which congressman or senator he needed to call at every instant. He would then invite them to breakfast, cocktails, call them at any hour of the day or night. He called one senator at 3 a.m. and said to the senator, 'I hope I didn't wake you up,' and the senator replied, 'Oh no, I was just lying here hoping my president would call.' So this is the moment for Obama to mobilize his troops in the field, to play hard ball, to do whatever it takes to get a bill passed. LBJ once said it was fine if final votes were razor thin, even with big majorities in the Congress, for that meant he had secured the maximum provisions he wanted, rather than compromising too early and too much.
—Doris Kearns Goodwin
Xtra Insight: The Daily Beast's Samuel P. Jacobs: Can LBJ Help Obama Pass Health Care?
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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ConstitutionalRights
Lyndon Johnson was the worst President of my lifetime.
He escalated the Vietnam war and held back our military once we stepped in it.
He created a "great society" social services program that has cost billions and broken up families and given bureaucrats and federal employees power to interfere with citizens lives and scared even the attorneys away because there is a on win scenario with their fascist activities.
He reversed President Kennedys tax cuts to spend for things he thought were good for the country, but had not checks and balances on those expenses and led us into a recession.
He sometimes gets credit for some civil rights issues, but he went kicking and screaming down that road.
If Obama follows that path, and succeeds, we are in for a real hard road.
SCMax101
The point is that Obama look to LBJ on how to get a bill through congress, you must admit that LBJ was great at that, Con.Rights.
Eykis121
I have been saying Obama needed to "go LBJ" on this. LBJ could get bills passed - the Civil Rights bill was not an easy task - same difficulty as health care. YES WE CAN.
planetgroucho
It's amazing how a macro view can be so narrow at the same time.
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n--Y--joebloeEykis121
Jackee, DKG is our foremost historic author. Get over yourself and sanctimonious attitude. People like you make me sick. No toughts, just Rethug talking points.
AiriqS
Johnson was effective, and the Civil Rights Bill passed with much support from Republicans. Johnson knew how to play off the opposing party against his own party. Remember, Johnson could not get the support on Civil Rights from Democrats like Al Gore and Robert Byrd.
Obama doesn't have the "game" that LBJ had. He came into the job as a junior senator who beat out another junior senator for the nomination.
What a pity.
Carole65
The other difference between Obama and Johnson is that Johnson kept himself informed while the bills he wanted passed were still in committees and he could inform the public with specifics, not generalities. You're right, Obama simply lacks experience, and people are beginning to see that the only hope and change they are getting is someone who deliveres a speech better than Bush
gak001
You might want to clarify that you're talking about Al Gore Sr. I think it's safe to say that most of us think of the Nobel Laureate and former Vice President first.
AiriqS
I'll refer to Al Gore as Al Gore, I'll add Jr. if I am referring to his hypocritical son.
By the way, it is the same Robert Byrd that "distinguishes" the halls of the Senate today. Democrats, I believe, adore Sen. Byrd.
gak001
Easy, old man. No sense in getting your knickers in a twist; I was merely making a suggestion to help clarify your language in the interest of successful communication.
gak001
You're missing the point - this isn't an analysis of policy it's an analysis of strategy. Even if LBJ instituted bad policies, he was still extremely good at getting those policies implemented.
keepakeeper43
@ConstitutionalRights
I disagree.
Certainly, the Vietnam war was a catastrophe for Lyndon Johnson and the country, and he will be associated with that disaster forever.
But thats not all he did and thats not all he is known for.
Yes, you can give him "credit for some civil rights issues". He passed the voting rights act of '64 & 65. The 1964 civil rights bill, and in 1965, Medicare and Medicaid. He also introduced federal aid to progressive elementary and secondary education. This legislation was unique and historic.
Johnson's stand on civil rights actions transformed the south, forever. His actions help destroy the traditions of 200 years of racial segregation and opened the way to equality for African Americans all over the United States.
Johnson himself believed that his accomplishments in civil rights issues was his greatest achievement. >The "South" went "kicking and screaming down that road", but not Johnson<
His "War on Poverty" changed millions of lives for the better. Head Start, food stamps, elimination of urban slums, public housing, expanded social security, legal services and welfare helped reduce the number of poor Americans.
He introduced bills creating open housing, environmental protections, and consumer safety bills. He created the cabinet departments of transportation and housing and urban development.
In 2009, a survey of 65 Presidential historians rated Johnson 11th out of 43 in leadership and accomplishments.
Reagan was rated 10th.
Dubya was rated 36th.
In my opinion, LBJ was certainly not the worst president of my lifetime.
That would be George W. Bush.
Johnson towers over Nixon, Carter, & Clinton in important legislative accomplishments.
Obama was elected (365-173 electoral votes) to follow a different path than George Bush. Thats what hes doing.
grenville
The civil rights acts of 1964 and 1965 were the culmination of the civil rights movement and the bedrock for civil equality in U.S. Jack Kennedy could not get such legislation through Congress; it took Lyndon Johnson's mastery to get them enacted.
Granite
Johnson was not a stellar example of a president (which is why I didn't vote for McCain/Palin).
However, Ms. Goodwin makes an excellent point. You have to have your team ready from the get-go and expect a a few might drop out. Launching with barely enough people on your side and hoping to pick up momentum rarely works. It is the recipe for large scale humiliation.
FNYGY1
It's inaccurate to describe LBJ's championing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as "kicking and screaming." If not for LBJ, there would have been no legislation at all.
innocentcitizen
obama can't be compared to any previous president. his policies are so far left that even lbj would be appalled. obama has little time left before the american idiots who voted for him realize they were bamboozled. even congress realizes that his policies amount to political suicide. lbj once said of a colleague, i'd rather have him on the inside pissing out, than on the outside pissing in! its time for obama to get inside and start pissing out instead of trickling all over us
raggedgyann-13
It is pitiful how selfish, cruel, americans are today. Our ancestors that fought the British in the Revolutionary War would be appalled at how selfish, how uncaring we are toward each other. I believe Obama practices "to much that is given, much is expected" Does anyone remember this statement and where it came from and who said it?
wannabe
Luke 12:48
jdx60009
JFK?
jenny4hill
From the Bible, Luke 12:48. JFK quoted it.
It was also an explicit value (part of the Quaker ethos) held by our nation's founding fathers. Those who attain weath only do it by the grace of the populace, on whose backs and through their labor and consumerism the wealth of the privileged is obtained.
panthro1234
the same ancestors who kept people as slaves and wouldn't let women vote? give me a break.
jenny4hill
panthro1234: Your point's well taken. But they didn't get it ALL wrong.
StopConRhetoric
Innocentcitizen, how about trying to be innocent of spewing baseless rhetoric??? Most liberal??? He appointed 4 Repubs to his Cabinet, the only other President to match him is Reagan who appointed 4 Dems to his Cabinet in his 2nd term....
He submitted a $98B War funding Bill to Congress, approved the deployment of 14,000 US troops to Afghanistan, blocked the release of more Gitmo pictures and has fought to keep the government from investigating the crimes committed by the Bush Administration!!
So he's funding the Military, including the GOP in his cabinet and blocking the attempts of Liberal groups to force prosecution of the W Administration. Explain how that equates to "most liberal???"
Sorry he had to walk into an $11T deficit nightmare, of which $9T was inherited from Reagan & the Bushs' vs. $2T from Clinton and Carter...W started the bailouts rolling by signing into law the $700B Wall Street bailout, Obama is just having to follow that same path.
tleonard
While I agree with the spirit of your argument, I am curious where you got your numbers.
innocentcitizen
it is a common tactic of con men to create a distraction for the rubes, in this case, deflect all attention to bush and reagan and create numbers that have no meaning. reagan at least defeated the soviets with our money, while obama wants us to become soviets w/all the bloated gov't that entails and built in failures. but its not just obama, it is the dems in control of congress since 96 that have caused all of these problems.
EdinNJ
I look forward to mocking you and every other wingnut in August when the healthcare reform bill passes.
We are already seeing the tables turn on this debate. The Republicans have already shot their load with their scare tactics. They are about to get schooled again.
maytenth
Um, hello, the polls show that public opinion is against health care reform--the kind that would make you pay taxes for health care you don't want, or supposedly cannot afford; and it's opposed to reform that ups the costs for small business owners.
Next, how about the fact that Obama *never* ran on universal health care. Hillary Clinton did. In fact, he only wanted to mandate coverage for those under 25. And now, he wants to universalize health care for all uninsured if not by 2010, then by 2020 when he drives away competition.
Next, no one wantsthe government deciding what your doctor can, or cannot, do for you as a patient. Do you want congressional votes authorizing YOUR health care plan? The whole thing is a joke.
Finally, and something you're not hearing from the reform supporters, of course, is that according to the World Health Organization, the US is number one in terms of patient outcomes, services, time to be seen, autonomy and privacy. The US is #1 for cancer care and survival. The problem is that we're # one in health care as a percent of the GDP and per capita income, and WHO gives a higher weight in their methods to countries with socialized health care. That's where the US falls behind. Not in health gross health outcomes, access, time to see a doctor, or other important indicators.
The Obama mandates will not drive down the costs, but, according to the CBO, drive them UP. This is testimony to congress.
So, to summarize:
Obama did not run on universal health care, but now he is demanding it;
Obama wants costs to go down (as do us all) but the CBO says under the plans put forth, costs will rise to the trillions;
According to the World Health Organization, the United States has the best health care coverage in the world when it comes to patient outcomes, cancer survival, and all the biomedical issues of privacy and patient autonomy.
Finally, the people of the United States oppose the reforms being put forth, as demonstrated by the latest polls. The tables are not turning on the debate at all, but rather, Obama is trying to motivate the public through fear--a great tactic of his with the stimulus bill and the climate change/cap n trade bill. At the end of the day, we need our congressional leaders to vote on legislation that they have read--unlike either the stimulus or cap n trade--so we all know what we're getting.
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n--Y--charles116jenny4hill
lol you funneh
alacra1
"So this is the moment for Obama to mobilize his troops in the field, to play hard ball, to do whatever it takes to get a bill passed." A bill? Any bill? The implication is that a lousy bill is better than no bill at all. Leaving this to Congress is guaranteeing a lousy bill, just like cap and trade. Obama's political capital is dripping away because he's handing all his chips to Congress. I want my vote back.
penscott
You got it! Any bill will do, and it has to be passed before the August recess.
Who wants to read it, or even know which of the various bills being written will be sent to Obama to sign? Nothing matters except getting a bill through, and then
vaunting this great achievement. It will be months before anyone has a chance to see what's in it, or what it will cost.
This is insanity.
chilichef
Unfortunately for President Obama, LBJ worked his way up in Congress; first as a representative, then as a Senator, and he ran the Senate for while. LBJ, whatever his faults, knew how the legislative process worked, he knew the players and he knew what he could demand from them. He also had favors he could call in.Obama doesn't; he didn't spend a lot of time in Congress, and he doesn't have a lot of favors to call in. He basically depends on Rahm Emmanuel to do this stuff for him, and Rahm doesn't have the pull that LBJ did. Congress has its' own agenda and he may not get what he wants out of it.
KofTX1
Anytime you can raise almost $1 BILLION in a campaign for public office, people who hope to be re-elected tend to listen to you.
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wfleet
LBJ was a fabulous president domestically. Astounding really. He used power as it ought be used -- for We the Sheeple. For people that a humane and civilized nation should succor. I hope President Obama does channel LBJ.
More people than the entire population of Spain have no health coverage in our USofA. It is shameful.
tleonard
Obama almost has the votes and has the capital left to pass healthcare reform, like it or not. My concern is the rush to get it done by the August recess. Adding over a trillion dollars to the deficit is no small measure - I would like more openness and discussion. Because, in the grand scheme of things, no one will remember in 10 years if the bill passed in August 2009 or December 2009.
philca
LBJ pushed more legistlation thru then any other president - and one of the main reason was that he was the Master of the Senate as Majority Leader. That may be the piece that is still missing from President Obama's learning curve. Since he is beyond that he should study more on the Johnson treatment.
www.progressivesspeakout.blogspot.com
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marcyhdg
the argument about health care is class based. I have not heard one person who does not have health care, and they arent all unemployed or poor, argue against sweeping reform. I have seen too many parents lose their job or their benefits struggle to pay for private health care...and they are the lucky ones (try to get coverage when you have 2 kids with severe asthma). Rationing? try going to an emergency room to get treated- my neighbor (w insurance) waited so long to be seen that her appendix burst in the waiting room! Dont want a bureaucrat telling you what medicine you can take? My son was prescribed a drug from his doctor and his insurance co said no. They told him to take a over the counter for 60 days and they would reconsider if it didnt work. His doctor was livid but they didnt care. ( and the generic didnt work and he lost 18 ponds and was in constant pain)
It is sad that we dont have the luxury, as did LBJ, to have congress spend months pondering and arguing over a piece of legislation. In this world of 24.7 cable news, blogs and tweets, everything needs to be fixed asap or some idiot on msnbc or fox will declare him a failure.
Artist50
People who have good insurance don't understand. I'm on a Cobra plan that I feel fortunate to have that I pay over $400 a month for meds even with my insurance. My deductible is huge and I have a lot of medical problems. Luckily, though it is expensive my state does have a plan for those with pre-existing conditions because no insurance company will take me and my Cobra will run out soon. I spend half my income on medical expenses and I'm still 7 yrs away from Medicare. I am of course frightened that Medicare will be defunct by then. It is my constant worry.
maytenth
We need to do it right, not fast. Its' Obama who said that the stimulus would work immediately, not the cable news shows. If they're holding him accountable, it's because he put himself there. we need health care reform. But we've waited 8 years, and we can wait another 8 months. Obama's timeline is artificial in terms of the health urgency. It's political because there's growing momentum for the 2010 elections, and he needs this done in order to give credibility to democrats running for office across the country. That's the reason he wants it done by August. Not for anything altruistic like saving money (ha ha ha--that's not in Obama's vocabulary), let alone, helping individuals like your son.
dmmalta
When ms.goodwin wrires something I have to wonder is it original or did she steal it from another writer. After all she is a plagarist,
GPatton
We don't need another LBJ presidency! Wall St. had been bailed out. But the so-called stimulus bill was all pork, a left wing wish list of spending most of which will be too late to do any good. Hope that healthcare isn't just a something for everyone, the pill people, the doctors, the insurance companies, whose true cost will bankrupt the US, years from now. We could end up with something worse and more expensive than what we have. No one really trusted Lyndon Johnson? Is there any reason to trust this administration? George Patton
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