POLITICS All Over? Or Just Starting?
Last July, immediately after the Republican Convention in San Francisco, the political consensus was that Barry Goldwater would do better against Lyndon Johnson than most people had thought. This week, after the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, there is a feeling among observers that the election is all but over, and Johnson will re-enter office with mandate enough to do almost anything he pleases.
The new consensus stems from the obvious fact that never in recent political history has one man held such sway over a major American political party. At Atlantic City, L.B.J. was in total charge. His political cake was like the one given him on his 56th birthday— big enough both to have and to eat.
The Details. What is the secret of Lyndon's ascendancy? Unlike Franklin Roosevelt—and certainly unlike Barry Goldwater—he does not polarize public opinion. Rather, he unpolarizes it. People neither love him nor loathe him. They simply stand in awe of his considerable talents—and, sometimes, in fear of his relentlessness in using those talents.
Johnson's attention to detail is such that not only did he decree the nomination of Hubert Humphrey as his running mate, but he picked the people to deliver Humphrey's nominating and seconding speeches in order to show the broadest party unity. Chosen to nominate Humphrey was Hubert's junior Senate colleague from Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy, who had been led to believe that he himself might be tapped for second place on the national ticket. McCarthy got the assignment from White House Aide Walter Jenkins. He acceded reluctantly, and his speech was barely perfunctory in praise of Humphrey.
Then there was Florida's Senator George Smathers, chosen by Lyndon to deliver one of Humphrey's numerous seconding speeches. Liberal Humphrey, a longtime champion of civil rights, is not popular down where Smathers comes from, and Smathers knows this only too well. "I really like Hubert," he says, "but I know the difficulty of carrying that load in the South." At any rate, he accepted the duty, seconded Humphrey, and even looked as though he enjoyed it. Johnson also arranged for a domesticated Deep Dixie Senator, South Carolina's Olin Johnston, to make the motion that Humphrey be nominated by acclamation.
The Hard Facts. The point is that Lyndon Johnson understands power—and its uses. Harry Truman complained that the President did not have enough power really to get things done. Republican Dwight Eisenhower deliberately refrained from exercising executive power, always praising Congress as a coequal branch. John Kennedy came bursting into the White House with a copy of Richard Neustadt's book, Presidential Power, under his arm. There were, he declared, ways to get things accomplished despite a recalcitrant Congress, and he was going to show everyone how. Almost immediately he ran into trouble with Congress, and few of his most prized programs became law during his lifetime.