Steve Kornacki: Don't Call Obama the Next LBJ
[Steve Kornacki is Salon's news editor. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com.]
This was the week for comparisons between Barack Obama and Lyndon Johnson -- and it shouldn't have come as a surprise to the current president....
Perhaps the key difference is that Obama enjoys a tight and intimate bond with the Democratic base -- the kind of personal relationship that always eluded LBJ. This was reflected in the path that both men took to the presidency. Obama, of course, was a neophyte senator in 2008, just a few years removed from the Illinois state Legislature. If it had been left to his party's power brokers, he'd never have come close to the White House. But his inspiring life story, optimistic message and magnetic personality helped build a grass-roots army that imposed its will on the Democratic establishment.
LBJ, by contrast, was nothing without his power-broker base. When John F. Kennedy tapped him as his running mate in 1960, much of the party's grass roots was indifferent to him -- maybe even hostile (because of his record on civil rights). As a Senate leader, he'd dealt almost exclusively behind closed doors, saying little of substance in public, and his personality inspired no one outside of Washington. Kennedy's murder made him president, but it didn't mean he was the spiritual leader of the Democratic Party....
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This was the week for comparisons between Barack Obama and Lyndon Johnson -- and it shouldn't have come as a surprise to the current president....
Perhaps the key difference is that Obama enjoys a tight and intimate bond with the Democratic base -- the kind of personal relationship that always eluded LBJ. This was reflected in the path that both men took to the presidency. Obama, of course, was a neophyte senator in 2008, just a few years removed from the Illinois state Legislature. If it had been left to his party's power brokers, he'd never have come close to the White House. But his inspiring life story, optimistic message and magnetic personality helped build a grass-roots army that imposed its will on the Democratic establishment.
LBJ, by contrast, was nothing without his power-broker base. When John F. Kennedy tapped him as his running mate in 1960, much of the party's grass roots was indifferent to him -- maybe even hostile (because of his record on civil rights). As a Senate leader, he'd dealt almost exclusively behind closed doors, saying little of substance in public, and his personality inspired no one outside of Washington. Kennedy's murder made him president, but it didn't mean he was the spiritual leader of the Democratic Party....