Word: johnsons
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Chance to Blossom. As a Congressman, Lyndon Johnson went pretty much down the line for the New Deal. He ran for the Senate in 1941 against W. Lee ("Pappy") O'Daniel-and got counted out by a highly suspicious 1,311 votes. He ran again in 1948, this time against former Governor Coke Stevenson-and got counted in by an equally suspicious 87 votes. During his first Senate days he was invited to a Southern caucus by the man who today stands as his most powerful backer: Georgia's Senator Richard B. Russell. There was an argument over...
...Dick Russell who swung all his great Senate weight to make Lyndon Baines Johnson the Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate in 1953. Yet it was against Russell's warning that Johnson made his first major move as leader: Johnson wanted to leapfrog promising freshman Senators ahead of their seniors onto the most sought-after committees, e.g., Montana's Mike Mansfield to Foreign Relations and Missouri's Stuart Symington to Armed Services. Cautioned Dick Russell: "You are dealing with the most sensitive thing in the Senate-seniority." But Russell was not quite right: the most sensitive thing...
...Levels. Johnson solidified his control by almost every means except by trying to control anybody. The powerful senior Southerners trusted him because he seemed to be one of them. In spite of this, and despite his support for such Texas specialties as the oil-depletion allowance, the natural gas bill and the tidelands oil bill, he won the support of Northerners by astute trades. Example: although Oregon's left-leaning Richard Neuberger had crossed him in a key vote, Johnson got to work the next day to round up votes for Neuberger's special pride, the Hells Canyon...
...Johnson exercises Senate control at all levels; he is the party leader, runs the policy committee, the party caucus, everything. He even took over the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, which helps elect liberals and conservatives alike, by wangling its directorship for Kentucky's ex-Senator Earle Clements...
...Forget." But the Senate balance is much too close and much too flexible for Lyndon Johnson to get anywhere just by confining his attentions to Democrats. "Cactus Jack" Garner of Texas once told him: "No leader is worth his salt unless he has friends on both sides of the aisle." Lyndon Johnson...