Jamelle Bouie: Can LBJ-Style Toughness Save Barack Obama?

Since July 2010, Jamelle Bouie has been a Writing Fellow for The American Prospect magazine in Washington D.C.

Last week, the New York Times published an interesting op-ed from a former aide to Lyndon Johnson, Joseph Califano, who presents Johnson’s ability to bully and cajole Congress into supporting his agenda as a possible template for President Obama:

In other words, Johnson won because he knew Capitol Hill’s pressure points. Like a great general, he understood the difference between tactics (the private promise, the discreet promise) and strategy (the order of bills, his legislative goals) and he understood how to make them work together.

 Today the White House confronts a similar need to raise the debt limit and eventually increase taxes, alongside demands that domestic spending be sharply reduced. True, Mr. Obama faces a more divided Congress and an unemployment rate more than double that of 1967, but not the kinds of divisions over race and war that prompted Johnson not to seek re-election.

Mr. Obama would be wise to look to the fiscal battles of 1967 and 1968 for inspiration. To slay his own political Cerberus without savaging social programs will take a similar measure of commitment, political wiliness and courage....