What Would Lyndon Do?

[theboss]

As I may have mentioned before, I was raised in a family of Old-School Democrats. Union Democrats. People who would say at random moments: "Hubert Humphrey was the greatest American to never be President." People who believed in the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society but knew that the idealists would get nowhere without the blood and sweat of the musclemen.

And this is why this Alito situation upsets me. No, I don't want him on the court. But - as has been mentioned elsewhere - elections count. If the Republicans have 55 votes in the Senate and control the White House, you aren't going to get liberal judges. Frankly, the idea of defeating Alito scared me, because I could only imagine what kind of Grendel Bush was going to nominate next.

In retrospect, the Democrats should have thrown all their love and support to Harriet Miers and got her on the Court if it killed them. Instead, they came up with some half-assed attempt to smear Alito during the hearings with some vague affiliation with a possibly racist organization (or not). And then, Kerry and Kennedy, threw the political equivalent of a half court shot with the poorly-planned filibuster.

And this left me wondering: Where the hell are the Lyndon Johnsons of this era? Where are the Tip O'Neils? Where are the Dick Daleys? Where, in fact, are the Humphreys?

I'm not talking about ideology. Johnson and Daley's ideology was "Get Democrats Elected" - an ideology I'm actually pretty fond of, in fact. But why do we no longer have leaders that can organize strategies, strong-arm votes, pre-plan smear, etc?

If Johnson wanted to nail Alito, do you really think he would have been screaming about subpoenas to the Library of Congress on day three of the hearings? Hell, no. He would have been sitting there with a Trenton hooker that Alito met in 1978 sitting three seats behind him, like that scene in Godfather II. Alito would have excused himself to the bathroom and never returned.

And none of these old leaders would have said, "Hey, let's filibuster...I'm going to Europe" at 4:30 on a Friday. They would have known every vote beforehand. If they had the votes, they would have steam-rolled Alito. If they didn't, they would have said nothing and saved themselves another public humiliation.

Can you ever imagine Dick Daley taking a public stand.. and losing? Please.

This is the issue with the Democrats right now: they seem to take inordinate pride in losing publicly. You don't gain power in politics by losing over and over again.

Kennedy and Kerry should know better. They are long-time Massachusetts politicians. When you go for the king, you have to succeed. They didn't even wound Bush this time. And Reid looks like he doesn't even know what's going on in his own caucus. And Dean has some good ideas at the DNC, but I get the impression that half the Democrats in the Senate wouldn't return his calls.

It's really just somewhat pathetic. I'm convinced that if we had leaders who knew how to simply count votes and keep party discipline, we would be 3 times more effective as a Party.

[Armstead]

1. Johnson would have called every Democratic Senator into a room..

brought out a paddle, and threaten to spank any Democrat who voted the wrong way.

Despite his Achilles Heel of Vietnnam, we need someone like LBJ, who know how to work the system.

[IronLionZion]

2. Yes, that's exactly what I've been thinking.

We need to be more organized and more effective as a national party. Howard Dean is taking us in that direction but we need to kick a few asses and get a few more good people elected in order to accomplish that.

[theboss]

7. I just don't see Dean as the arm-twisting type

Granted, he's at the DNC so tallying votes on the hill is not really his job.

Frankly, we need someone like Tom Delay who - for some reason - puts the fear of God into every Republican in the House.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. LBJ would send more troops to Vietnam.

[Sammy Pepys]

4. Yup, right there with you.

Call me old school, but back in the day guys knew how to get it done. While I love the passion and the fire that guys like Kennedy are capable of, sometimes it gets overdone and Reps just write it off as some sort of freak out that doesn't deserve attention. I'm not saying we should give that up....we just need to not make it the only gun in the holster.

[Justitia]

5. Oh man - this would have NEVER happened under LBJ.

I'm a Texas Dem, so I am well familiar with Lyndon and Rayburn (see my sig line)!

He would have gone into caucus, sucked all the air out of the room and let those guys know that voting "aye" on cloture was worse than selling their mothers to a whorehouse - a whorehouse run by republicans!

Ahhhh....I miss the days of colorful old LBJ. He & Rayburn were one helluva an effective team in Congress. He must be spinning in his grave.

[lastliberalintexas]

6. But that requires party discipline, and apparently

there are too many people who don't want us to be like republicans in terms of party structure. Johnson (and Rayburn more quietly) would have made damn sure that we had the votes because we had 45 Dems. And heaven help them if 6 had dared to vote against the party.

The republicans understand the importance of that. But it seems we're too concerned with playing to the polls, rather than playing to win (both elections and principles).

[no_hypocrisy]

8. He'd pick up * by the ears like his beagles and tell him to cut the sh**.