LBJ's "Old School" Approach to Congress

As President Obama Spars with Congress over Health Care, Bob Schieffer Looks Back at LBJ's Congressional Charm

(CBS)  Lyndon Johnson was the best there ever was at getting Congress off the dime. The civil rights bills he passed are just part of the proof and it got some of us wondering how LBJ would have handled the current health care mess.

I thought of my friend Bill Stuckey. The day after he won a Georgia congressional seat as a very young man, LBJ dispatched a government plane to Georgia, flew Stuckey to Andrews Air Force Base, transferred him to a helicopter which delivered him to the White House lawn. He was taken directly to the Oval Office where the President put his arm around him and said, "Son, I need your help."

From that moment, Stuckey said, "I never voted against him."

In a post on the Daily Beast, former LBJ aide Tom Johnson recalled how the "Johnson Treatment" worked.

He said LBJ kept a list of Congress members on his desk along with every special request they had ever made from personal White House tours to federal projects.

He personally horse-traded with them. He had Bill Graham calling the Baptists, Cardinal Cushing calling the Catholics, Henry Ford calling the Republicans. Jack Valenti would have called the Pope, if needed.

He sent pictures to their kids and cufflinks to the members. He knew their financial contributors and pressured them to pressure the members.

He prayed at six different churches, threatened, cajoled, flirted, flattered, hugged and got the bill passed.

I guess that wouldn't work in today's sophisticated world. But it sure worked then.

Andrew Cohen: What Harry Reid Could Learn from L.B.J.

[koko98-2009]

How would LBJ pass health care? Easy, sit the Republicans down and say if you don't want a CIA investigation then give me SIX republican votes on health care in the Senate. Effective yes, legal no.

[bucsfanlarry]

Thanks, Bob, for reminding us of what it took to pass the landmark legislation of our lifetime - The Civil Rights Act. Too bad it took another half-century for our country to experience the splendor of its eventual enforcement...
Even as a fellow Texan, I've never held much respect or regard for LBJ, but you absolutely make the point that no Civil Rights Bill would have passed Congress by a weaker president. For that LBJ deserves our honor and respect.
However, I find only one similarity of that historic time and concern to today's debate on health care. I find it disturbing, dismaying and disgusting that some of my fellow citizens, self-named patriots, would deny any of our fellow citizens an equal measure of affordable health care.
These public demonstrations seek to withhold equal treatment to other citizens! That cannot be in either a democracy or a Republic. If not organized and funded by those would continue to benefit from our current system, these displays can only be described as yet another insidious form of discrimination.
In either case, shame on all of you.

Larry Schuler, Master Sergeant, U.S. Air Force
Disabled American Veteran, Vietnam Era
Cedar Park, Texas

[cameraphone]

It is hard to believe that the last truly major legislation that has come from Congress was the Civil Rights Act back in the 60's.

Instead, all we have gotten since then is Nixon's Watergate and the Clinton impeachment.

[Widget101]

Apples and oranges, Mr Schieffer. If President Johnson had been under the scrutiny of the Internet he wouldn't have made dog-catcher.

[proudmilvet]

Neither this President, nor any other President can get Anything done anymore. Thanks to the Conservatives & Right Wingers with their win at any cost strategy, this country has become too mean, nasty, & cynical to expect any kind of cooperation from anybody. I am almost 60 years old & i have followed politics since i was a kid. I cannot remember a time when a President was subject to such vile & hateful comments as President Obama has been. Conservative websites, Talk Radio, & Fox news have been name calling & insulting him 24/7 since he won the election, even before he was Inaugurated. He is called a Muslim, a Socialist, a Marxist, a Communist, a Nazi & a Racist. Thanks Republicans & Conservatives for being the Dis-Loyal Opposition. What Patriots You All Are!!

[sjc_1]

These may be the same people with Support the Troop bumper stickers on their gas guzzling SUVs while our military are over in Iraq. I have no idea what is in it for some people opposing health care reform. There has to be something in it for them, because that is what motivates them. Either that or they are just supporting people that have something at stake, like the GOP and all the money they receive from the health care industry.

[sjc_1]

The President can not use the same methods as LBJ, that was then and this is now. He has to go where they live...money. He has the show the opposition what is in it for them and how it will hurt them if they oppose. You got to get them where it hurts. Sure they want to be reelected, but that is not enough. Show them that their party will be out of power for decades going down this path, they might pay attention.

[miami_don]

Being a Texan who was alive when Johnson was president I have to tell you sjc...you sound a lot like him. But you lack charm, and without it you haven't learned how to use all the tools in the box. Did you know LBJ was the only president J Edgar Hoover was afraid of? Why do you think that was?

[texbelle123]

I have been waiting and watching to see if Obama would take a page out of LBJ's playbook and take control of the Health Care debacle in Congress. Our only hope is if he does. . . but the odds aren't very high in that regard.

Like 'em or hate 'em, LBJ got the most important legislation of the last have of the century passed: the Civil Rights Act.

If Obama really wants the Health Care Reform to pass, he's gonna have to shuttle this bipartisan hoopla - you can't compromise with those whose answer to everything is "No!" . . . that's just capitulation. He's gonna have to learn from LBJ and go for the win.

[sjc_1]

Bob Schieffer lives in the past. LBJ was a vain and arrogant person. He acted like he had the magic charm, but everyone he manipulated remembered how they were taken advantage of. There is no comparison with our President today.

[altdoc]

To suggest that Bob Schieffer lives in the past is at most a facetious statement. He is one of the most competent journalists, tv or otherwise, on the scene today and his commentary on LBJ reflected Don Hewitt's "tell me a story" ideal.