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Targeting the Treatment: The Strategy behind Lyndon Johnson's Lobbying
Author(s) -
Beckmann Matthew N.,
Chaturvedi Neilan S.,
Garcia Jennifer Rosa
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
legislative studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.728
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1939-9162
pISSN - 0362-9805
DOI - 10.1111/lsq.12150
Subject(s) - presidential system , aside , politics , offensive , presidential campaign , legislature , political science , law , whip (tree) , hoax , sociology , public administration , management , economics , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology , art , literature , forestry , geography
Lyndon Johnson woke up studying whip counts, went to bed reading the Congressional Record , and invested countless hours in between translating that political intelligence into a lobbying offensive. The result, famously christened “The Johnson Treatment,” remains the archetype practitioners and political scientists cite when appraising presidential leadership on Capitol Hill. Yet Beltway folklore aside, we know little about how LBJ helped forge winning legislative coalitions. Stepping back from the (countless) colorful anecdotes, this study offers a new and systematic look at Lyndon Johnson's lobbying. Specifically, after exploring theoretical models of presidential coalition building, we then investigate their operational tenets using original data on all President Johnson's contacts, with each member of Congress, in both chambers, for every day he was president.