Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes
Stroke ‘em as much as you can.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1908-1973, 36th President of the United States (Democrat, TX), Advice to Assistant Larry O’Brien on how to deal with members of Congress to get them behind the President’s legislative program, Phone call, November 1963
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The President was facing an imminent close defeat in the Congress and needed to tip the scales. He called one of the leaders who was opposed to his position and explained that he didn’t want to lose face. This was a classic Johnson proposal where the quid pro quo was not even subtle. Johnson got the vote of the leader’s bloc and indeed did reciporicate later.
He was a Congressman at the time. The problem of legislating in an election year seems to have always been difficult.
The President-elect was very circumspect with respect to Congress:
When requested to have the assembly remove items in the proposed constitution at the last minute:
This quotation is a classic example of the type of deal making that President Johnson commonly engaged in.
He was talking about teh importance of getting people to learn about and know birds and other wildlife so then they would be enviornmentally conscious by wanting to take care of the wildlife. However, this quotation has much more generality, in that this characeristic of human nature seems to apply to immigrants, people of different religions and even of different polarized political subgroups. Contact with and knowing others tends to induce empathy, care, concern adn love.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to by his initials LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, in office from 1963 to 1969. He served as the 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963 and assumed the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Democrat from Texas, Johnson was also a United States representative and later majority leader in the United States Senate. Johnson is one of only four people to have served, at various times, in all four federal elected positions.
