Means of Ascent

Caro's second volume in his long biography covering Lyndon Johnson's rise to and utilization of power is as interesting as the first, perhaps because it shatters some aspects of Johnson which have crystalized or at the least become somewhat opaque with the passage of time.

It is rare for folks to believe any politician is 100% on the clean and narrow, but it is another thing to see the levels of brazen chicanery that some are capable of. I knew very little about LBJ before diving into these books - he was not a President of much focus in my education other than mentions when discussing the various civil rights legislation passed during his Presidency. What I did know essentially boiled down to his campaign button: “All the Way with LBJ.”

What is clear from Caro's work here is that Johnson was singular in his focus: he wanted to obtain power. It is not clear why other than to correct from childhood experiences, and Caro teases future analysis of what he will do when he obtains power throughout the first two LBJ volumes. What becomes even more apparent as one reads this second volume is that the petty and conniving methods used on his college campus and as part of the “Little Congress” are the rule for LBJ, rather than the exception (at least so far). There were events in the book which were so blatant, so brazen, as to be shocking even to a reader in today's political world. Johnson's campaign strategy of all-out-assault on Coke Stevenson's reputation is certainly an ancestor of today's political campaign strategy, but the outright theft of an election is at least today more technical as opposed to petty theft.

I was somewhat taken with Caro's description of Coke Stevenson. The parallel I grew for him was that of Abraham Lincoln: largely self-educated while working through the day and into the night. His approach to campaigning seemed, at least superficially, somewhat simple. The distinguishing feature between the two is the lack of both magnanimity and political gamesmanship as traits in Coke. Where Lincoln was gifted with political intuition and the will to use it, Stevenson comes across as fairly inept on this front. Whether this ineptitude is due to lack of skill or ethical aversion to such gamesmanship is perhaps debatable - Caro's frame in this work is that it comes from ethical aversion, or perhaps even that Stevenson simply believed it was not necessary to engage until too late.

While I ‘read' this book primarily through Grover Gardner's wonderful narration of the Audible audiobook, there were times when I stopped to review the printed text or read portions in print via the Kindle edition. One portion of the book which is left out of the audiobook but included in the Kindle and print versions is Caro's afterward, specifically his discussion on his presentation of Coke Stevenson and response to articles that emerged after this book's initial publication. I would consider this afterward a required element to this book and was disappointed that it was not included in the narration. The afterward contains some critical context and discussion on Stevenson and his reputation as it exists today and how it has been impacted by the victory of Johnson and his generation (in a way, it serves as an interesting example of reality versus ‘history is written by the victor').

This was a great read, and I am excited to continue on in this series!