After President Barack Obama's speech on health care earlier this month, pundits have compared his performance to that of President Harry "give 'em hell" Truman. After his election, they compared him to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. But for the upcoming health care battle, Mr. Obama needs to step into the shoes of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. For LBJ's brawling, Southern style of trench politics is best suited for Mr. Obama's challenge, especially when it comes to lining up votes from recalcitrant members of his own party.
LBJ is one of America's most underrated presidents. He was president during most of the 1960s, one of the most tumultuous decades in modern U.S. history. The nation was torn by race riots and a deadly struggle for basic civil rights on behalf of its racial minorities. Despite backward attitudes and stubbornly discriminatory institutions, this hard-nosed Southerner was able to deliver more on the nation's urgent civil rights agenda than his predecessor John F. Kennedy, an Irish Catholic from Massachusetts, ever could have done.
Stories of LBJ's toughness are legendary. He was willing to twist arms and step on toes of his narrowly tribal colleagues in the South. He knew how to stare down some of his former Senate associates, calling them into his office, rolling up his sleeves, poking them in the chest and getting nose to nose, eyeball to eyeball. He could curse, bully and hound like a redneck thug when he needed to.
But he could sweet-talk and horse-trade too, as well as log-roll, pork barrel and use all the tools of legal bribery and persuasion that a president possesses. It wasn't pretty, but it sure was effective. LBJ got the job done by having a clear compass on what could be bargained away while still maintaining his objectives. And what resulted was the greatest civil rights legislation since the abolition of slavery - the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - which significantly reduced discrimination and started America down a path that ultimately led to the election of the first black president.
Mr. Obama needs to let the Blue Dog Democrats like Sens. Max Baucus, Ben Nelson and Kent Conrad know who is in charge. He needs to tear a page from the playbook of two other Southerners who knew how to put on the brass knuckles. Former GOP operatives Karl Rove and Tom Delay made it clear that any Republican representatives who crossed their agenda would face a well-funded conservative opponent in their next party primary.
