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How Lyndon Would Have Passed Health-Care Reform
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One of Lyndon B. Johnson's closest aides explains how the whatever-it-takes Texan would have gotten a health-care reform bill passed through sheer will.
LBJ would:
Have a list of every member of Congress on his desk.
He would be on the telephone with members and their key staffers constantly: "Your president really needs your vote on this bill."
He would have a list of every special request every member wanted, from White House tours to appointments to federal jobs and commissions.
He would make phone calls or have an in-person visit with every member individually or in a group—charts, graphs, coffee. They would get the Johnson Treatment as nobody else could give it.
He would express a willingness to horse-trade with every member.
He would keep a list of people who support each member financially. He would make a call to each to tell them to get the vote of that representative. (Arthur Krim, Lew Wasserman)
He would have Billy Graham calling Baptists, Cardinal Cushing calling Catholics, Dr. King calling blacks, [Texas Congressman] Henry Gonzales calling Hispanics, Henry Ford and David Rockefeller calling Republicans.
He would get Jack Valenti to call the pope if it would help.
He would have speeches written for members for the Congressional Record and hometown newspapers.
He would use up the White House liquor having nightcaps with the leaders and key votes of BOTH parties.
Each of them would take home cufflinks, watches, signed photos, and perhaps even a pledge to come raise money for their next reelection
He would send gifts to children and grandchildren of members.
He would walk around the South Lawn with reporters telling them why this was important to their own families.
He would send every aide in the White House to see every member of the House and Senate. He would send me to see Senator Richard Russell and Rep. Carl Vinson because I am a Georgian.
He would call Kay Graham, [CBS president] Frank Stanton, [NBC president] Robert Kintner, and the heads of every network.
He would do newspaper, radio, and TV interviews. Especially with Merriman Smith, Hugh Sidey, Sid Davis, Forrest Boyd, Ray Scherer, Helen Thomas, Marianne Means, Walter Cronkite, Phil Potter and Bob Novak.
He would go to pray at six different churches.
He would threaten, cajole, flirt, flatter, hug, and get the bill passed.
Xtra Insight: Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on Obama’s 'Johnson Moment.'
Xtra Insight: The Daily Beast’s Samuel P. Jacobs on whether LBJ can help Obama pass health care.
Tom Johnson was one of Lyndon B. Johnson's closest aides. He also served as president of CNN in the '90s and publisher of the Los Angeles Times before that.
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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.
Justice Clinton?
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
KemCho
If you can not sell on the substance, sell on personal charm. I did not think Chicago mob ever needed charm. They rather use batons, kick legs, twist arms and break knee caps. Obama has to really CHANGE!
mcmchugh99
You think LBJ wouldn't have done that if he had to? By all accounts, he liked to get up close and personal if you were in his way.
Yes, it must have been a please to watch a Master Pol at work.
ThinkAgain
Hey Stalin was even better at getting in peoples faces. Bet you'd really love him! Those strong arm bully tactics really appeal to those who don't know how to (or care to) communicate with the people.
case1234
LBJ did not have to contend with the type of right wing corporate media machinery that exist. Although you did have Reagan making albums against Medicare and "socialized medicine" even back then. That did not compare to the constant drum beat of anti-reform messages and disinformation (lies) filling the airwaves.
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agentmule
Why can't Obama be more like LBJ?
Short answer: LBJ was from Texas
AlanD2
So was Bush 43. Just goes to show that being from Texas doesn't mean that much...
bertobal
Just goes to show you don't know jack. Bush LIVED in Texas. He wasn't FROM Texas. He was born in Connecticut of American blueblood royalty.
LBJ was FROM/OF Texas.
Learn some history.
AlanD2
bertobal: I know that. But he claims Texas, and a lot of Texans claim him. (They elected him governor twice, after all.)
For better or worse, Bush and Texas are going to be linked in future history books.
BullMoose
Yep the sure do things big in Texas.
Shrub is the biggest cause of the lost lives of innocent people ever from Texas, bombing innocent children in Iraq.
Shrub is the dumbest fool to ever migrate to that filthy hell hole Texas, which i would vote to give back to Mexico.
SmoknKynd
Really? Dumb? I'm not a fan of the guy, but he (whether individually or through his staff) wielded a nearly unimaginable PR machine. We thought Obama grabbed hold of it during the end of his candidacy and first 50 days or so, but now it has begun to sputter.
(Just think - When people wore tshirts blasting Bush they were barred from presidential events. But people carrying guns are allowed into Obama events. In this case, Bush wins.)
overdue
I agree with SmoknKid. I couldn't wait for him to leave office, but it's disingenuous to call Bush dumb; many books have been written on his speech impediments, for example, and they show how he would make those famous mistakes while talking to people he didn't care for. In front of his "fan base" he spoke more clearly. Plus he was bilingual; that takes some brain power, no?
So given that he really isn't dumb, now not only is it disingenuous to call him that, but it's a shallow, not thought out argument AND it's also an insult to those who despise for REAL reasons: his cruelty and contempt for those left on the wayside, his kiss-ass patheticness to the religious right, his greed for $$$$ and power.
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mightyCW
Not at all. Johnson was one of the best pure politicians we've ever had in the White House. Whatever you think of his policies, he was brilliant at getting his way. Unlike Obama (and Bush, Reagan, and Clinton), Johnson was totally hands-on and did not rely on his aides to push his agenda. Like the article implies, his style was "full-court press", and even though he was personally insecure, not too charismatic, and sometimes a bully, he willed things into happening. He could even put his own prejudices and racism aside to push for Civil Rights, and by so doing risked a massive part of his Southern base - and he succeeded. If not for Vietnam (huge "if" obviously) Johnson would be remembered today (by liberals) as the greatest president since FDR (of course, conservatives would be busily rewriting history to make him a socialist...)
Anyway, criticize Johnson however you want, but one thing he absolutely was not was "politically incompetent".
whatthel
Very nice post. If not for the Vietnam war, Johnson would be remembred as one of the greatest for his social programs.
Ritarita
Yes.
Very nice post.
Good eyesight.
mcmchugh99
LBJ's father was a Populist, which was basically the American version of socialism. LBJ got a lot of ideas from him, which is one reason he was an ardent supporter of FDR and the New Deal all his life.
AlanD2
whatthel: He will be remembered as one of the greatest just for the Civil Rights Act.
cbeenthere
And Lady Bird Johnson was a most admirable First Lady, and a very smart woman.
sbvpav
okay, you think so? ask your parents what they think of social security and medicare? you must be part of that great, proud to be a white republican, "southern strategy."
AlanD2
You've forgotten Bush 43 already?
mightyCW
Bush was actually a pretty good politician. Despicable and incompetent, but he pretty much got whatever he wanted...including being reelected despite a disastrous and unpopular war. Gotta give him credit where it's due; he knew how to exploit people and play the game.
AlanD2
mightyCW: Getting legislation passed is easy for any President whose party controls both houses. (Unless, of course, you are talking about the Democratic party. Sigh...) Bush didn't have much luck after the 2006 elections.
From what we are now hearing from Tom Ridge, it looks like Bush played the terrorism card to the hilt in 2004 in order to get reelected.
He knew how to play the game alright, but he was using loaded dice.
Daveparts
Winterh, Read a book for God sakes, Medicare and the civil rights amdement. Johnson was one of the most effective Senate Majority leaders ever. Thats why he was chosen as Vice President if he wasn't on your side he could stop legislation. Johnson was a ball buster, Fox News? They would be sitting so far in the back of the Presidential news conference they could see their cars being towed.
joymars
Said like a typical dickhead Repug who refuses to look at reality. You typify all that is wrong with this country today.
mcmchugh99
I always said LBJ would have been remembered as a great president except for Vietnam. He knew that, too. I hope Obama keeps a picture of him close by and looks at it every day, as a reminder.
It must have been a pleasure to watch a master politician at work, as he got his way with Congress. No Democrat since has ever been able to do it. Of course, having won that big landslide in 1964 didn't hurt, either.
sbvpav
so did obama, we just need to remind him of who sent him there - and i don't mean just left wing progressives but moderates and republicans; he was elected by an overwhelming majority of american voters to get health care reform done.
ThinkAgain
Listen to the LBJ tapes sometime. The one of him whining that the war was lost but he couldn't tell the public cuz that would ruin his presidency tens of THOUNSANDS of deaths before he was forced to admit it is really touching. Yeah this is the kind of politician we need to go back to.
mightyCW
Yeah because every liberal here has been saying that Vietnam was such a great idea. Why don't you read a history book and find out which party was obsessed with "winning" Vietnam in the late 60s and early 70s?
flyoverland
Today, he would be called a bully. special interest groups would criticize him for not being politcally correct. MSNBC would name him the worst person in the world. Dozens of lawyers would sue him for harrassment. His radio stations would have been boycotted by advertisers. His girlfriends exposed and interviewed by Oprah. His ranch picketed and bloggers would comment and paradoy him right out of office. . It is a whole new world today.
sbvpav
you may be right; but lbj loved nothing better than a good fight!
flyoverland
I'd love to see him kick Olbermann's ass
wfleet
I would put LBJ at the greatest American domestic president. Astonishing how he changed civil history.
Please, Mr. Tom Johnston, hand-deliver this fabulous article to President Obama & his bevy of Nervous Nevilles. I want to hear Prez O say as LBJ said of Medicare, "I will fight for public option as long as I have breath in my body."
sbvpav
amen, but he really has or at least its equivalent - "if i am a one term president and get health care reform passed, that's okay with me."
BullMoose
Harry Reid has not been himself since he suffered a mild stroke several years back.
wfleet
How interesting, BullMoose. It seems like Leader Reid's sort of underwater sometimes, as if he can't quite connect. So maybe this is why.
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n--Y--untillwfleet
It's the relentless and detailed and comprehensive homework. *That* can be done in any era. I mean, praying at six churches, now that's brilliant.
You can't convince anyone, however, if you keep saying you're 'I'm kinda with the tepid urgency of someday for public option, but I'm open to any good ideas for choice and competition.' Too mealy-mouthed.
Do you think Jim Messina is a mole? He's ex-chief of staff for Max Baucus, now Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House. Daschle's spit-warm on public option, huge with Kent Conrad on the insipid co-ops, & BFF with Max Baucus. Is there an appalling anti-public option pattern here?
sbvpav
what a great article! i have been commenting for a week now, "what would lbj do?" we need more lbj and less faux, phony, disingenuous, obfuscating bi-partisanship.
for untill: if it were today, lbj would be a blue dog democrat and still get the job done and get the bill passed.
Ritarita
Don't assume
The 'bipartisanship'
Is not a strategy.
Daveparts
"I don't like bipartisans. Whenever a fellow tells me he's bipartisan, I know that he's going to vote against me." (Harry Truman)
AlanD2
Ritarita:
I agree.
Obama has more
Than an arm
Up his sleeve.
allonfla
delusional. how do you completely dismiss what's happened to this country in the past few decades and say that Johnson would have easily gotten this legislation passed?
AlanD2
LBJ's Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed in a country that was much more polarized by the race issue than we are today by the health care issue.
I was in college in Tennessee back in the early 60s. To give you an idea of what it was like back then, almost all of the students cheered wildly after hearing that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.
I would not doubt at all that Johnson's Congressional expertise and his nasty arm-twisting ability would give him an edge over Obama in passing health care reform. Easily? That's another question...
dixie-chik
Boy howdy, how I wish Obama would co-opt the LBJ wrangling style. There would be no civil rights in this country without him.
jpelhamtn
Nor would there will Civil Rights in this country without the votes of the Republicans who put the bill over the top. Thank you LBJ and the GOP.
mightyCW
Thank the GOP outside the South - southern Repubs voted against it just like Southern Dems. And no thanks to the Barry Goldwater "conservative" wing of the GOP, which began taking over the party during Nixon's time, culminating in Reagan. Really, the GOP that largely supported Civil Rights has as much in common with the modern party as Lincoln's GOP (which, for the historically unaware, is very little).
nolaman
LBJ was our greatest domestic policy president, and I include his mentor FDR when I say that.
But as president he was just pulling on the same strings that he had developed in the Senate. It was his years as the master of the senate wherein LBJ was a titan the likes of which we will likely never see again.
To his credit I think that President Obama is trying to redress the imbalance of power established by Cheney and Rove and their notions of the imperial presidency.
But maybe now's not the time for a more humble bully in the pulpit.
Tejana
This San Anto girl needs to offer a correction: "[Texas Congressman] Henry Gonzales" is Henry B. Gonzalez.
allonfla
LOL!!! LOL!!!! LOL!!!! What planet are you guys living on? Yearning for a president from long long ago. Do any of you really think that Johnson would have accomplished as much in 2009? With this retarded media, and a sometimes willfully ignorant populace, does anyone think he could have pulled off much of anything? Stop yearning, start getting real and let's face some hard truths here: Johnson is not some colored guy with the middle name of a dictator. He didn't have to deal with a 24/7 MSM, FOX News, the Internets and so much more. I'm not making excuses, these are the facts and it is unfair to compare our current President with those who never had deal with the noise we have going on now. And let's also make clear that GREAT people from the past aren't called GREAT until they die or fall off the radar for decades.
MaliciousDisorder
Whatever it takes, just like Vietnam. 56,000 Americans killed because of his lies,
SFGiants
Before you dump on Johnson any more, remember that it was Eisenhower who started us on that slippery slope by interfering in the reunification election of 1956, and then by sending the first military advisers to Nam.
jpelhamtn
Oh please, as if the great WWII commander, Eisenhower, would have ever got us mired in Vietnam. What nonsense.
BainsAR
LBU was a political genius. Times are different today and the media is configured differently but I have no doubt that if he were alive today he would understand how to work within the 'new' environment.
Obama does not have the age, experience and relationship history with other politicans to have developed the political skills that LBJ had. That will not change without the passage of time. So Obama has to deal the hand he is dealt with the skills and staff he has.
Unfortunately it is not going well at this juncture.
Great commentary BTW.
MaliciousDisorder
The guy lied about the attack in the gulf just so he could make 300 million from his helicopter interest and kill 56,000 American kids.
Thank you.
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