(3 of 8)
With a Republican in the White House, Congress has been the main arena of Democratic deeds during the Eisenhower years. Every Democrat who orates at the convention about the party's national record—including ever-increasing congressional majorities—will be talking, in effect, about Lyndon Johnson's record. As leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate—minority leader in 1953-54, majority leader since—Lyndon Johnson has been the U.S.'s No. 1 Democrat. His only serious rival for that title would be House Speaker Sam Rayburn, the fellow Texan long programmed to place Johnson's name in nomination at Los Angeles. *
Shackles of Responsibility. Somewhat less direct than Kennedy, Johnson pursued the presidential nomination a lot less singlemindedly. As long ago as mid-1959, many of his closest friends and advisors started urging him to declare himself a candidate, travel around the country enlisting Democratic Governors and county chairmen to his side. Johnson repeatedly refused. If he started openly campaigning for the nomination, he explained again and again, he would have to neglect his duties as Majority Leader. During the past half-year, while Jack Kennedy was devoting most of his time to hot pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination, Majority Leader Johnson, confined to Washington by shackles of responsibility, had to restrict his active campaigning to weekend forays.
Johnson knew that, as a Southerner, he carried a heavy handicap in the race for the nomination, apart from the burden of responsibility that kept him in Washington. Less than two years ago, he predicted that no Southerner would be elected President in his lifetime. But the sum mit collapse in Paris, followed by the cancellation of President Eisenhower's visit to Japan, gave Johnson fresh hope that, as a seasoned, responsible Senate leader, a spokesman of moderation and national unity, he might be able to wrest the nomination away from "young Jack," as he calls Kennedy.
Personal Standard. The first sure sign of Candidate Johnson in action came last fortnight when he and Sam Rayburn got Congress to recess until August. To political connoisseurs the feat of recessing the U.S. Congress was as dazzling a maneuver as Jack Kennedy's primary victory in West Virginia—and typically in the Johnsonian idiom. Without saying a word, he served notice that his would be the dominant Democratic voice during the formative months of the campaign, that Senators, Congressmen—and even Governors —with pet legislative projects would still have to reckon with Johnson, Rayburn & Co. after the convention. The recess also gained for him a few extra days for his last-lap drive to catch up with the Kennedy bandwagon. On the fifth anniversary of his heart attack, Johnson worked through the night until 9:30 a.m., pushing through a bill empowering the President to cut Cuba's sugar quota. Then, with his majority leader duties done until after the convention, he caught one hour's sleep before getting on with his campaign.