Targeting the Treatment: The Strategy behind Lyndon Johnson's Lobbying

Abstract

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 eachmember of Congress, in both chambers, for every day he was president.

Publisher

Wiley for the University of Iowa, Comparative Legislative Research Center

Publication Date

5-1-2017

Publication Title

Legislative Studies Quarterly

Department

Politics

Additional Department

Comparative American Studies

Document Type

Article

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12150

Language

English

Format

text

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