The History Lesson Jill Biden Must Read: How Lady Bird Johnson Got LBJ to Step Aside
By: Julia Sweig (The Daily Beast)
Makes sense
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
DEJA VU?
Now is the time for Jill Biden to look to Lady Bird Johnson, and how she dealt with her husband's second-term dilemma, writes Lady Bird's biographer.
Julia Sweig
Updated Jul. 08, 2024 6:24AM EDT / Published Jul. 08, 2024 6:17AM EDT opinion
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
Joe Biden's presidency has been compared to Lyndon Baines Johnson's for its highly significant reshaping of domestic policy. But here's another comparison which has not been embraced—and should be: the crucial role of Lady Bird Johnson in creating and executing the strategy that resulted in LBJ bowing out after a single elected term.
Lady Bird Johnson (left) dealt with being second lady to Jacqueline Kennedy (right) with aplomb; for her husband being vice president was trickier. Joe Biden says he was inspired by JFK while his presidency has been compared to LBJ's. Now it is Jill who has a chance to be inspired by the Johnsons.
Cecil Stoughton/The White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library/Reuters
It's a comparison that our current first lady should study closely, because these next few days may be the most consequential of her life.
The parallels between Jill Biden and Lady Bird Johnson are clear: both were senator's wives and second ladies before entering the East Wing; both faced roiling crises—civil rights, COVID, Jan. 6, Israel—tearing at America's social fabric. Now, like Lady Bird, Jill must help her husband make the ultimate choice: to run or not to run for a second term.
When LBJ grudgingly accepted the vice-presidential slot on JFK's 1960 ticket, he was Senate majority leader; the role was a demotion by any light. For him, it was "like trying to swallow a nettle: hurt, sticky, spiny," in Lady Bird's account, as detailed in my book, Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight. But as second lady, while her husband wallowed, she began to thrive. An often despondent Jackie Kennedy tossed her a large chunk of her ceremonial duties. Yet Lady Bird accepted them with aplomb.
For the Johnsons, promotion to the presidency and the role of first lady not by election but by assassination was far worse than choking on a nettle. At first, Lady Bird genuinely believed they were caretakers and would stay in office only for 13 months. But six months into the presidency, and as a devout New Deal Democrat, she began to believe that LBJ—with her help—had the chance to make good on the domestic policy agenda—particularly civil rights and universal health care—that FDR's death in 1945 had left unrealized.
It took months after her husband was sworn in on Air Force One with her by his side for Lady Bird to come to believe he should run for election. But she came up with a strategy of serving one full term then bowing out-and persuaded him to follow it.
Cecil Stoughton/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library/Reuters
But she had two problems to overcome. One was LBJ himself; the other was the country.
LBJ lived under the cloud of depression and, after a massive heart attack almost killed him in 1955, the prospect of not living to finish out even a first full term was real. As much as LBJ has been painted as the embodiment of power, his formidable ability to exercise it came at a huge cost to his mental and physical health. Serving as Senate majority leader had almost killed him; the presidency might finish the job.
Lady Bird's fears were voiced as early as May 1964, when the inexorable pull into the unwinnable morass of Vietnam was only just beginning. Lady Bird by then well understood, as she wrote in her diary, "the depth of [Lyndon's] pain, when and if he faces up to the possibility of sending many American boys to Vietnam or some other place."
LBJ was worried less by his ability to beat Barry Goldwater in November than by his capacity to hold public support and to govern going forward.
On the morning of his 1965 inauguration, Lady Bird already had a clear timeline for her husband's service and departure. While the coming years tore at America's social fabric, she persuaded him to stick to that course.
Yoichi Okamoto/LBJ Library/Reuters
Despite her stiff and two-dimensional public persona, Lady Bird Johnson possessed deep reserves of wisdom, stamina and, crucially for her husband, political judgment. And she was the only person in his immediate circle whom Lyndon trusted without reserve.
That May, she retreated to the Huntland estate in Virginia and, at LBJ's request, wrote him a strategy memo. The Huntland memo set forth the idea that LBJ commit to one full term in office—she didn't want him to retire early and drive her crazy back at the Ranch. "If you win," she concluded, "let's do the best we can for three years and three or four months." And then, in "February or March 1968" she proposed, announce that he would not run for a second term.
Of course, LBJ ran and defeated Goldwater and, before Vietnam became the intractable crisis, passed the Civil Rights Act and the Great Society legislation which Joe Biden considers his inspiration.
By fall 1967, though, the mood in the country had turned. After living in what she described as "insulated against life" at the White House, Lady Bird began her own shift when appearances on American campuses to promote her environmentalism were drowned out by protest and as one daughter's fiance and another's husband prepared to deploy to Vietnam.
The Bidens are also in a quandry over running for a second term. Unlike Lady Bird, Jill has been publicly and privately behind her husband running.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
"I want to know what's going on—even if to know is to suffer," she said. She had already begun counting the days to the end of his term and in October of that year launched her campaign to focus Lyndon on the timing of his public announcement that he would not run for a second term.
She helped draft his January 1968 State of the Union; in his breast pocket was tucked a section announcing he would not run, but he decided not to deliver it. Instead, it was on March 31, 1968, in an Oval Office address purportedly about Vietnam that her husband explained his decision not to stand as a candidate for re-election.
The campaign was too consuming, the priorities of the presidency as he saw it- a peace process with Vietnam, a deeper civil rights expansion—had to be his focus. "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."
Lady Bird had helped draft this speech too, but it was her quiet strategy nearly four years in the making that LBJ embraced that night and that our current first lady can learn from.
Coaxing someone she loves out of doing what he loves—and Joe Biden clearly loves his job and relishes the potential of a second term—may well be the hardest moment of Jill Biden's own political career. But it may be as consequential as saving the American republic this fall.
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Learning from history would be prudent
Maybe the best decision Johnson ever made was that Texas gal.
From then on, she was the woman behind the man and by far the better half.
All this because he is perceived of losing 1 debate with Trump?
This is the only non-primary debate that Trump is perceived to have won. But I do not recall him being asked to step away when he lost the previous debates with Biden (2020), or the debates with Hillary (2016).
No, it is the plethora of evidence showing he is incapable of performing the duties of president, he is mentally handicapped and is no longer in control of all his faculties.
What evidence is that and please provide links to that evidence.
Is THAT what you think is the driving force behind it?
That is what the right wing is striving to push.
Tremendously perceived by 67% of those who watched.
But I do not recall him being asked to step away when he lost the previous debates with Biden (2020), or the debates with Hillary (2016).
Nor was Obama when he lost the first debate to Romney. Then again, we knew Obama could come back. You seem to think Biden should just carry on. I'm with you on that.
It’s humorous to see rwnj’s post articles like this. Clearly it is they themselves that want Biden out of the race, because they know Republicans don’t stand a chance when Biden is in this race. Mock him all you want, but when you post this stuff you show your own fear.
Did you not see the debate? Bidens conduct during the last debate is what the right has been calling out since he took office. And you think THAT is going to win?
I realize that you guys practically creamed your pants when Biden failed to perform, particularly after he so over-performed at the SOU that you had to resort to a “he must have been on drugs” defense. It was 90 minutes from a guy who clearly was under the weather, during which time we had to endure nonstop lies, immaturity, and uninformed hogwash from his opponent. If you would stop pushing so hard that this one event signifies being unfit then you wouldn’t look so obviously scared of what Biden will continue do to Republicans at the polls.
He was awesome. There's no way a struggling old man could possibly deliver the worst polling SOTU in history.
t was 90 minutes from a guy who clearly was under the weather,
He was jet lagged. How could anyone possibly sound legally competent two weeks after traveling?
during which time we had to endure nonstop lies,
Hearing someone claim no one died during the Afghanistan withdrawal, or falsely claiming the border patrol endorsed him etc would make anyone sound like their brain was falling out of their ears, right?
If you would stop pushing so hard that this one event signifies bei
Exactly! Because there's one thing Biden's shown is an ability to speak without a teleprompter, answer unscripted questions and perform basic functions like leaving a stage without having his wrist grabbed. Ask the special prosecutor! For like two hours a day he's really coherent if he gets his nap in!
This is certainly the only time he's ever look brain damaged. Totally out of the blue that he was lost without a script to read.
Seriously, it's amazing to watch the batshit crazy excuses people are making to defend Biden. It's like watching a cult struggling to realize their leader isn't a God.
Please understand that I don’t even read your responses anymore. I could practically write them myself by now, since it’s the same tired ass shit every time.
90 minutes? Under the weather? That's hilarious. He's been doing that for the better part of the last few DECADES.
And we've had the same from Biden. But you are silent about those. Why is that?
Again, this has all been called out for a very long time. Just because YOU just noticed it doesn't mean it's something new.
That's fine. I enjoy reading your rote devotions to the party. I'm always amazed by how ridiculous people are willing to get while defending their creed.
Difference is, when he can read off of a teleprompter, it's easier for him. When he has to think on his feet, that shit goes right out the proverbial window plain and simple. That's why his handlers don't let him answer questions any more.
What will be your excuse when Republicans lose all over the country again, including the White House?
Even then its bad. He's Ron Burgandy, he'll read the cues along with the text of the speech.
Truth! Awesome.
Not me. I want him right there at the top of the democrat ticket!