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LBJ Offers Lessons For President Obama In Dealing With Congress

Johnson-style horse trading may be of the essence

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by Mark Updegrove

Director of the LBJ Presidential Library t

Image: AP.

As President Obama looks ahead to his inauguration, he may ponder the words of a predecessor on the limited shelf life of presidential power. "I've just been re-elected by the overwhelming majority. And I just want to tell you that every day while I'm in office, I'm going to lose votes," President Lyndon Johnson told an aide in 1964. "I'm going to alienate somebody. We've got to get this legislation fast."

President Johnson may have left public office more than four decades ago, but his keen political observations ring true today. And they are now more available to the public than ever. Re-opening on Saturday, after a $10-million renovation, the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum in Austin sheds 21st-Century light on the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Thankfully, LBJ had both a Texas-sized ego and a sense of history, and he secretly recorded hundreds of hours of phone calls with top lawmakers and world leaders. For the first time, visitors to the LBJ Museum can eavesdrop on the White House recordings on handsets. The 60-plus recordings provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of President Johnson as he anguished over the Vietnam War, discussed the assassination of President Kennedy, strategized with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or simply sought homespun advice from Lady Bird.

The calls also feature the master persuader browbeating lawmakers into passing his landmark legislation. Take the Civil Rights Act. In the mid 1960s, Johnson strived to fulfill the elusive promise of civil rights, which necessitated bipartisanship despite the Democratic majorities LBJ enjoyed in the House and Senate. In an effort to outflank the intractable Southern lawmakers in his own party who had stymied any meaningful civil rights reform since Reconstruction, Johnson gained the support of northern Republicans.

One phone conversation, with Republican Everett Dirksen of Illinois, has Johnson appealing to the Senate minority leader's vanity by insisting that his bold support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would make him worthy of being from the "land of Lincoln," and guaranteeing that he would he would get "proper credit" for it. True to his word, when Johnson signed the bill into law in June of that year, the President presented the first signing pen to Dirksen.

But more to the point for the current fiscal-cliff negotiations - " and bi-partisan compromise - " is another 1964 conversation between Johnson and Senator Dirksen. Their dialogue has Dirksen pressing the president for support of a dam project in Illinois as a receptive Johnson pushes for a quid pro quo on excise taxes:

LBJ: "Now, you're not going to beat me on excise taxes and ruin my budget this year... You can do it if you want to, and you can ruin my budget, but you're hollering "economy" and trying to balance it...

Dirksen: Now - now, look at the pressure I'm under...from the damn trade associations.

LBJ: Well, I know it, but God, you're also for good fiscal prudence, and...you know that the way to do this is through the House committee...They're not going to let y'all write a bill over in the Senate on taxes.

Dirksen: I don't suppose they are.

LBJ: Now, please don't press me on that.

Dirksen: Well, I've got to press it-

LBJ: Well who are you going to take? You're going to take all your Republicans? Give me one or two of them and let them be prudent. You've got people on there that can...

Dirksen: Well, you've got enough votes to beat it.

LBJ: No, I haven't. I haven't ... And you see how I'm-how you're going to let me win by one vote in there, and I'll call you back in a little bit on [the dam]."

In the end, Dirksen got his dam and Johnson got the GOP votes he needed to get his excise taxes.

As President Obama starts his second term and battles with Congress over the budget, and now a new gun control bill, Johnson-style horse trading may be of the essence. An increased sense of urgency might not hurt, either. As President Johnson once told an aide, "I never considered the 1964 election a mandate. I considered it a loophole, and I figured we had to get through it as fast as we could before it closed."

Mark K. Updegrove is the director of the LBJ Presidential Library and the author of "Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency".

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Does President Obama need to engage members of Congress more actively in his second term?

Comments (view in Forum)

  • o
    woodtick57
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    Back when our representative understood they were sent to DC to get the job done. Compromise takes intelligence..hey, maybe we need more women in congress seems their IQs are higher....
  • o
    woodtick57
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    Mr. Updegrove, LBJ was such an incredibly interesting figure in US history...It must be so interesting directing his presidential library. Thanx for the article.
  • PoliticalSpice
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    @Republican5001 I just can't get the image out of my head. Will you be wearing gray uniforms this time? The womens fashion mags and GQ want to know...
  • Post Removed by Moderators

  • View all 9 replies >

  • PNWest
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    If Obama had 1/100 the ability that Johnson had to win over/ browbeat/cagole/blackmail/thre aten or otherwise convince congressmen and senators to do the right thing we'd have single payer healthcare now. But thank God Obama has the strength of character to not to allow the military industrial complex to get us into another middle east war.
  • o
    woodtick57
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    Don't worry, Obamacare will destroy the health insurance industry quickly and then there will be no choice but to go with nationalized healthcare.
  • Fishbone345
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    I've heard the reason Johnson had the ability to "win over/ browbeat/cagole/blackmail/thre aten or otherwise convince congressmen and senators to do the right thing", but its not something that's necessarily brought up in polite company I suppose.
    Lets just say, there's a reason his surname is also a nickname for something.
  • martydotcom
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    Keep in mind we've got a Senate Majority leader who filibustered his own bill and a House Majority Leader who couldn't even bring his own bill to a vote just now. It doesn't matter what Obama does, you can't make this stuff up
  • PNWest
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    @Fishbone345 Johnson was tight with J Edgar and probably knew some deep dark secrets. He was also a brilliant politician and knew which buttons to push to get his desired results. Read the Robert A Caro books to learn more than you'll ever want to know about LBJ. You'll even find out about Jumbo.

  • View all 9 replies >

  • martydotcom
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    That was then.. Southern President from Texas dealing with a congress who understood they were elected by the American people to run the country for the benefit of we the people.
    Now we have a congress who couldn't care less for anyone who can't buy their vote An uncaring congress totally dedicated to the destruction of Obama's presidency no matter what the cost to the county. When you're dealing with a congress, an institution with a 9% approval rating, and they think they're doing the right thing what would make anyone think they are willing to negotiate anything ??
  • Dan_Tien
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    Obama compromised on health care reform and ended up with a bill that nobody likes. I don't want to see a repeat performance. Republicans don't seem to want to compromise enough. What they propose seems more damaging than going over the "cliff" that Congress has already carved.
  • Tralee
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    LOL - "compromised"? with whom? Certainly not the Republicans, he didn't get ONE vote from them and had to coerce and threaten and bribe his own party members to vote for it and just to make sure, they suspended normal rules to hold the vote. No, this misbegotten mess of a health care bill is all Obama and the Dems. fault, no one else to blame but themselves.
  • PoliticalSpice
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    @Tralee That is precisely the problem, he could have got far more, earlier in the process he had the votes for a public option, but he was so busy wasting his time offering compromises, while negotiating, in essence, with himself, that no one liked the final product. If he would have pushed through medicare it would have been simple, remove the words "over sixty five" from the medicare law. Some would have liked it, somd would have hated it, and everyone would have understood it. And a lot of his base, who are not happy with being required to give money to private corporations, would have been very pleased...
  • Tralee
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    @PoliticalSpice Totally disagree, he didn't negotiate, he has no clue how to do that, his "negotiatoin" was to tell the Republicans that "Elections have consequences" and to add "I won". He may have been trying to negotiate with his own party, but the Republicans were totally shut out, Nancy P. held the meetings on Obamacare behind a LOCKED door, just in case a Republican wanted to add their opinion. Only the far left want a single payer option and just look around you, England has realized that it's an unsustainable plan, they are running out of rich to tax to pay for it. Most of Europe is trying to back away from state run medical care, you have long waits for service, rationing and fewer and fewer health care professionals. That's not what we want here. If Obama had worked with the whole congress and not pawned off the writing of this law to the most liberal members of congress we might have actually gotten something that would be good, he didn't and we don't.

  • View all 8 replies >

  • PoliticalSpice
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    One thing Obama certianly needs to learn is how to deal, in every way. How to use his power to push things through when he can, how to trade pirk for votes when he can and how to persuade. He can start by watching the movie Lincoln. Very interesting article. Thank you for it.
  • o
    woodtick57
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    was that the vampire movie? hard to push things through a house that votes straight up the majority party lines regardless of the worth of the bill.
  • PoliticalSpice
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    @woodtick57 not sure if your kidding, no not the vampire movie, though there are certianly bloodsuckers present in the house today. This was the movie was just called "Lincoln"
  • u
    Belin
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    Absolutely!!! That is the only way anything can get done. This is not a dictatorship. President Obama cannot just come up with a bill and pass it on his own. There are Democrats that even oppose him on some things. He needs both sides of the isle!
  • Vance1
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    Compromize, isnt what we send people to DC for.
    We try to elect people who in turn represent us "The People" but most fail
    I look for all anti gun people to take a HUGE fall at the next elections.
  • Denizen_Kate
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    Compromise is >exactly< why we send them to DC. There is no way that all of us will every agree on everything, and if our representatives are too pig-headed to compromise, nothing gets done, which is what we have now. Do you really expect to be happy with each and every bill that comes out of congress?
  • Tralee
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    Of course, but his arrogance will not let him, he actually thinks he's the smartest man in the room, with the only answers and that all his ideas are golden ones. A person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) cannot fathom that anything they say could possibly be wrong or incorrect. LBJ, with all his faults, was a master negotiator, he got things done by giving a little here and taking a bit there. Obama is the epitome of "It's My Way or the Highway" type of thinking. He will never compromise, cajole, or even try to enlist the help of the other side, therefore his second term will, as history finally unfolds without the adoration of the current crop of MSM, also be a stunning failure and historians will wonder how the American people were so misguided as to reelect him for a second 4 years of total failure.
  • bsking
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    rumble Kesslers book" inside the White House" gives add different perspective on LBJ as someone who voted against civil rights for 20 years and voted with the Democrat south who were against any form of civil rights for blacks. in fact it was Dwight Eisenhower a Republican who put the first civil rights legislation up in 1957. coincidently it was northern Republicans who passed the bill in 64 with Johnson being quoted on Air Force One with to Governors saying " by signing this legislation I'll have those n#"&*ers voting Democrat for 200 years".

    now I know in America 2012 we are fully vested in revisionist history , but I wonder there seems to be a plethora of questionable LBJ quotes when it comes to racist remarks against blacks even after signing the 64 bill. how does the author square that?
  • harold_lloyd
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    In LBJs day, lobbyists weren't the all-pervading influence that they are now. That changes the game considerably. And it's partly the reason the Republicans in the house are so prone to anarchy, they all work for lobbyists, not the party or the voters.
  • mudpike
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    It's been four years - he's done nothing , doing anything even if it's wrong is at least an attempt. LBJ was a serious racist - read his words why he decided to start what we know know as today's 'welfare system'. People like him & even obama , Jackson & Sharpton is why the 'Reverend Martin Luther King ' was a Republican . Get an education.