I finished the Passage of Power today by Robert Caro - the author of the Power Broker. For the past 20 or so years he has been working on a massive volume of the life of Lyndon Johnson, the 36th President. In his presidency, he passed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the Freedom of Information Act, NPR and PBS. Domestically, he was a master - but ultimately his legacy was overshadowed by the Vietnam War.

This is book 4 and it follows Master of the Senate, when Johnson was the Senate Majority Leader of the Democratic party. Here, he leaves that post and joins the Vice Presidency behind JFK before ascending the Presidency after JFK’s assassination in 1963.

The book makes frequent references to LBJ’s ability to pass legislation in the Senate through the accumulation and use of power. He was a persuasive person - willing to use any tactic to get through to you. Caro frequently refers to LBJ being able to “get to” a particular Senator. He cajoles, promises, and threatens in a display that is pretty impressive. Caro goes into one particular episode - a telephone conversation with southern Senator Robert Russell - with particular detail and I pulled it up on YouTube. It is an amazing analysis.

When LBJ took the Presidency in 1963, it was a year before the election. The nation was in shock. JFK had been an inspirational and much beloved leader with unique leadership skills. These skills were most demonstrated when he deftly handled the Cuban Missile Crisis. LBJ did not conduct himself very well during this time - thank God he was not President then. He would not have a JFK to hold him back during Vietnam a few years later (Vietnam looms over this whole volume like a horrific monster under the bed).

JFK was an inspirational man but he did not know domestic policy. All the actual legislative policies that his rhetoric inspired was stuck in Congress doomed to fail. It was not until LBJ arrived that these policies happened. The book’s details on the legislative block-and-tackle tactics and man-to-man cultivation of Senate chairmen are amazing. JFK inspired, but LBJ actually made it happen. For that, we must admire him.

Caro’s thesis is that today’s congressional gridlock is not a historical anomaly but instead the norm. We would have decades where our government does nothing as it trudges through partisan dissent - but every so often a great man like LBJ or FDR would come along at the right time and the doors would suddenly open and progress can finally breathe.

But reading through this book I cannot help and compare 1963 with 2016. I wonder if today’s gridlock can ever be overcome. The very tactics that LBJ and later Nixon pioneered - this intense electioneering and campaigning - have mutated into this super-partisan environment we see today. In 1963, our Senators could be appealed to appreciate to their role in history. I do not think the denizens of the internet would let them do that today.

On a podcast I heard somewhere about the deficiencies of the Steve Jobs biography, the speaker said that he wished Isaacson gave Jobs the same treatment Caro gave his subjects. I now know what he means. This is a masterful biography on American power and you should read it.