Is this Biden’s LBJ moment?
Lessons from a presidential dropout.
If you’ve been to Washington, D.C., then you might know that the Georgetown neighborhood — where I attended college for four1 years — isn’t terribly accessible from the rest of the city. So, since I graduated in May and moved across town, I haven’t been back much.
But I was there yesterday visiting a friend, so I decided to quickly stop into the local bookstore (shout-out Bridge Street Books!) I used to frequent as a student. I was browsing in the history section when a book poking out of the shelf stopped me in my tracks: “The Thirty-First of March” by Horace Busby.
In case you aren’t caught up on your Caro, I’ll explain why the book immediately intrigued me: Busby was one of Lyndon Johnson’s closest advisers. And March 31, 1968, was the date that Johnson announced he wouldn’t be running for another term. How was it that, in a bookstore I’d been to dozens of times, I’d never noticed (or even heard of) this book, possibly the only book in the history of publishing solely dedicated to the story of a president ending his re-election bid2, until now, right as the same exact thing might be happening again? Had the Bridge Street employees taken the book out special, as a clever nod to its sudden relevance, or was this just a stroke of bookstore coincidence?
Either way, I bought the book, of course,3 and read the whole thing in a day. With very limited visibility into the conversations going on in the White House right now, it felt like the best insight we might have into the decisionmaking process behind a president — another political lifer, at that — calling it quits. There was a lot in its 226 pages I found resonant.
Busby penned many of Johnson’s most-acclaimed speeches, so it’s no surprise that he writes “The Thirty-First of March” with the flair of a presidential speechwriter. Then again, it would be hard not to make the story he was telling sound dramatic.
While Biden’s decision to drop out — if one is made — will have been long and drawn-out, Johnson essentially decided to quit over the course of 11 hours. During that frenzied period, Busby was one of only a handful of people who was even aware of what the president was considering. “The Thirty-First of March” tells the story of that decisive Sunday, from Johnson calling Busby to the White House in the morning to him going on television to announce his withdrawal in the evening.
The similarities between Johnson and Biden write themselves. Two lifelong pols, in the true sense of that word, who first got involved in local politics in their 20s, then served in the Senate for decades, ran for president, became vice president to the person who beat them in the primaries, and eventually moved into the Oval for themselves (albeit under very different circumstances).
They both presided in a time of wrenching national division, but — drawing on their experience in Congress — managed to enact an impressive legislative agenda. (Indeed, Biden often seeks to compare his record to Johnson’s.) Eventually, though, partially due to their handling of foreign wars (Vietnam for one; Afghanistan, then Gaza, for the other), they grew unpopular. This one might be playing the tape forward a bit, but I’ll note that Johnson then dropped out and had a VP who was nominated at a Chicago convention and went on to face a Republican who dabbled in populism.4
There’s one big difference that divides them, though: when it came time to contemplate the end, Johnson’s decision to step down came entirely from Johnson.
Herein lies LBJ’s first lesson for JRB, paraphrased here by Kenny Rogers: you gotta know when to fold ’em.
Johnson, Busby recounts, was intent on writing his own ending to his political career. “The name of this game is to quit while you’re ahead,” the president told Busby, gesturing to a poll that showed his approval rating slipping among Democrats. “I’ve always prayed I’d have sense enough to get out when the time came, before they had to carry me out.”
Busby paints a portrait of Johnson that is somewhat dissonant to the popular image of him as power-hungry, cunning, and ambitious. Or, at least, by 1968, he just appears too exhausted to be any of those things properly.
“The biggest reason not to [run again] is just one thing,” Johnson said to Busby during his deliberations. “I want out of this cage.”
“I’ve had a good life in Washington, a damned good life,” he continued. “Anyone who came from where I came from and got even half this far ought to thank his God every night. I have no complaints. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with sixteen fellows, wearing big guns under their coats, following me everywhere I go. I don’t want the whole damn world watching every time I move and listening every time I open my mouth. Sometime before I go, I want to be able to go down to that ranch and sit by that river and look out over the hills and be a human being.”
Johnson, whose father died at 60, made his decision partly out of concern for his own mortality; indeed, he would live only four more years after leaving office, dying at age 64. And yet, at 81, judging by how tightly he is clinging to his presidency, Biden does not appear to be thinking along these lines, worrying that, if he were to win again, leaving office at age 86 (incidentally, the age his father died at) would leave him little time to “be a human being” in Wilmington, surrounded by his family.
Like Johnson, Biden has also compared life at the White House to a “cage”; unlike Johnson, he shows no signs of wanting to escape it. Perhaps, after 53 years of nearly uninterrupted time in elected office, there simply is no Joe Biden the human being without Joe Biden the politician. Or, perhaps he also yearns for the “freedom” Johnson talks about throughout the book, but feels a sense of mission (stopping Donald Trump) that overrides it.
In Johnson’s case, his mission in 1968 was ending the Vietnam War; ultimately, he made the calculation that he could only do so by declining re-election. In the same March 31 speech that ended his campaign, Johnson announced a bombing halt in Vietnam, geared at reopening peace negotiations. “I can’t get peace in Vietnam and be president too,” he decided.5 Reportedly, Biden has gone in recent days from saying “Kamala can’t win” to asking if his vice president out-polls him against his predecessor, a suggestion that he might soon arrive at a similar calculation: he can’t block Donald Trump and maintain the Democratic nomination.
But Biden’s time is ticking to leave on his own terms, as Johnson did.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that “The Thirty-First of March” could be optioned for a Hollywood movie. The book is full of subterfuge: at one point, Johnson literally touches his fingers to his lips, as a signal to Busby that another adviser asking him about “the bombshell” is referring to the peace offer, which was widely known within the White House, not the campaign announcement, which was kept a secret.
Or maybe it would be better as a Broadway play: Busby describes spending most of the titular day in an 11-hour “vigil,” locked in a room at the White House, watching the clock tick by as he writes Johnson’s withdrawal speech and reflects on his boss’ legacy. From next door, he can hear all of Johnson’s other confidants yelling at the president, begging him to stay in the race; Busby had been ordered to remain out of view by Johnson, who knew that Busby’s presence (as the rare aide who agreed the president should quit) would only make the others angrier.
Here we arrive at another dilemma for a president considering an exit, one that is surely shared with Biden: your advisers will fight it until the very last minute. Biden biographer Franklin Foer put it best recently in The Atlantic, writing about the hangers-on surrounding Biden: “Nobody wants to believe that the most important figure in their life is approaching the end. It’s even harder for staffers whose entire identity is wrapped up in their association with the career of one political figure. To admit his end is to provoke a crisis in their own professional life. If I’m not whispering in Biden’s ear, then what am I?”
According to several news reports, in addition to Biden’s decades-long advisers (who have largely urged the president to stay the course), the fiercest advocates inside the White House for Biden’s continued candidacy are his family, namely his wife Jill and son Hunter.
Eventually, as the hours crawl by, Busby is brought back into the inner sanctum, where all of LBJ’s advisers are begging him to reconsider. But none more passionately than his 21-year-old daughter, Luci. In one of the book’s most poignant scenes, she beseeches the White House staff to overrule her father, almost like a princess appealing to the royal court for power.
According to Busby, as “her mother watched, silent and anxious, Luci went from person to person, exhorting each of them to ‘do something.’”
“If this happens, I’ll never have a chance to vote for Daddy,” she cried out.
Eventually, she arrives at the author:
Leveling her finger at me from across the room, Luci approached, speaking with what was for her a very unnatural fierceness. “Mr. Busby,” she demanded, “why? Tell me why.”
I waited for her further question as others approached to listen.
“Mr. Busby,” she said speaking evenly for a moment, “every person on this floor loves my father—they like him, admire him, understand him, or they wouldn’t be here. That includes you. But why is it that out of all the people here you are the only one who wants him to give up this office?”
“Maybe,” Busby responded, “it’s because I’m the only one here who’s not here all the time.” (By this point, Busby had left Johnson’s employ, returning only to the White House at the president’s request for this one speech.) Another lesson for Biden: in this hour of decision, don’t listen only to family or to people on the payroll.
But anything that might be gleaned from Johnson’s decision-making process — fascinating as it is — pales in comparison to what can be learned from the book’s ending. If I were Nancy Pelosi, trying to urge Biden to step down, I would simply print out page 208 of Busby’s memoir and read it to him, again and again.
The scene takes place one day after Johnson’s withdrawal announcement. He flies to a pre-scheduled event in Chicago, Busby in tow. There had been no plans for a public greeting of Johnson upon his arrival. And yet, when he walked into his hotel, “the lobby was jammed from wall to wall,” with Chicagoans applauding thunderously. Busby writes that, after many months of facing protests and public disapproval, Johnson seemed puzzled by the sound, unable to comprehend it. “Poor man,” whispered another aide, “he doesn’t remember what a friendly crowd sounds like.”
“After tens of thousands of hours in their leadership,” Busby continues, “Lyndon Johnson had, in his one hour the night before, finally reached through to the people he sought to serve” — by doing that rare thing: stepping away from power.
Johnson’s approval rating, which stood at 36% before the speech (a tick below Biden’s 38%), shot up to 49% overnight. Writes Busby:
At the White House, an unprecedented tide of messages flooded in from throughout the nation. Democrats and Republicans, friends and strangers, hawks and doves, suddenly saw the president, and even the presidency, in a new light; an impulse toward unity, non-partisanship, and cooperation came welling up and swept toward the chief executive.
A climate was forming again, as it had at the beginning of his presidency, in which Lyndon Johnson could function at his own best to make the political system function again at is best. Time was not too short. The most imposing achievements of his administration had been wrought in the first nine months of his elective term, and now nine full months were his to achieve much more for the future of the nation.
It was Johnson’s “brightest shining hour,” the author adds, “the happiest week of his presidency and, possibly, of his political career.”
Now, we shouldn’t be naive here. We live in much more polarized times. If Biden does step down, some critical Democrats might remember their affection for him, but his approval rating is unlikely to see a 13-point increase. He won’t receive grateful letters from Republicans, except for the Jeff Flakes of the world (and maybe the Chris Christies). His prospects for more legislative achievements are slim. Busby wrote that March 31 was “one of those very rare days…which all Americans share together,” as they watched Johnson collectively on television. That’s simply not the way our culture works anymore.
Nevertheless, if Biden does step down, the media narrative around his presidency —which has turned quite dark in recent days — will take a sudden shift. It may be hard for him to believe it now, but all the focus on the debate, and his polling deficit, and criticism from fellow Democrats will quickly melt away, replaced by flowering praise from party leaders, saluting his long career, his statesmanship, his sacrifice. I can already see it now, the gauzy video at the DNC, celebrating his life story.
Just as Barack Obama and George W. Bush have seen their approval ratings rise after leaving elective politics, Biden might be surprised by how much unity a president can command — something he craves, by all accounts — once they walk out the door. “Everyone in the world thinks you would do anything to hang on to power,” Busby advised Johnson. “That impression has colored the whole public reaction to your presidency. I personally feel that if you take this step it will help in the long term for people to see better all that you have accomplished in your administration.”
Conversely, if he hangs in, all anyone will want to talk about is the debate, the polls, the party division, for the next four months, a never-ending parade of second-guessing whether Biden should have quit, whether his decision was borne of selfishness. If he defies the polls and wins, he’ll be historic. But if he loses, he might be remembered as little more than the Trump era’s Benjamin Harrison.
Although, in the moment, it seems like nothing is more important than the debate and the concerns about his age, if he steps down now, it’s possible that the 2024 election will be airbrushed from his legacy entirely. In Johnson’s case, his anointed successor lost to Nixon, but I would argue that the 1968 election — because he stepped away from it — doesn’t really figure much into how he’s remembered by historians.
Instead, his presidency is largely regarded for its legislative successes (and the morass of Vietnam). In a 2021 C-SPAN survey of historians, Johnson was ranked as the 11th-best president in history. He was give the No. 2 spot in not one, but two, categories: “relations with Congress” and “pursued equal justice for all.” For Biden, who has also centered legislative and racial progress during his presidency, a legacy like that probably doesn’t sound too bad right about now.
These are the arguments that Pelosi and Schumer — if not his paid advisers — are surely making to Biden, just as Busby made them to Johnson.
In case you couldn’t tell, a high political melodrama is playing out in Washington (and Rehoboth Beach) right now. Factions are surely forming, just as they did in Johnson’s White House. Questions of legacy, and mission, and mortality are floating around the presidential quarantine, as the window closes for Biden to write his own ending, as Johnson did, rather than risk being dragged out, as Johnson feared.
“Tonight is better than tomorrow night,” John Connally, the governor of Texas (who agreed with Busby), told Johnson at one point. “And last night would have been better than tonight, because time is running out.”
Just like for Johnson — who told Busby that he wouldn’t know if he would drop out “until I get to the last line of my speech on the teleprompter” — this decision might came down to the final minute, after hours of intense debate, full of emotion. On March 31, for Johnson, “twenty years [in politics] were coming down to a single day,” as Busby put it. For Biden, it’s more like fifty — plus, in his mind, the future of democracy.
We don’t know what’s being said in those closed-door conversations — for that, we may have to wait for Mike Donilon’s forthcoming tell-all, “The Twenty-First of July” (exact date to be determined). Until then, we can only look to history, hoping to glimpse for answers.
The latest Biden developments
In the last 24 hours, several new Democratic lawmakers have called on Biden to step down — including a second senator, Jon Tester of Montana, and the first Congressional Black Caucus member, Texas Rep. Marc Veasy. 30 congressional Democrats have now urged him to pull an LBJ, if you will.
According to the Washington Post, Barack Obama is telling allies that “he thinks the president needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy,” while Nancy Pelosi is saying privately that she believes Biden “can be persuaded fairly soon to exit the presidential race.” It has already been reported that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries previously expressed grave concerns to Biden, rounding out the Democratic power structure.
“Wealthy supporters of President Biden’s campaign have slammed their wallets closed,” the New York Times reports, “with support from major donors in July on track to plummet to roughly half of the previous month’s amount if he remains in the race.” Meanwhile, per CNBC, “in an unexpected twist, events that feature Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden’s likely successor should he step aside, have started to sell out.”
Per NBC, Biden family members have begun to discuss “what an exit from his campaign might look like.” The Hill has reported that Biden’s decision is expected in the coming days, and that Democrats are already gaming out potential Harris running mates. (The outlet named Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper are the forming shortlist.) Harris allies are already making quiet preparations for a potential Biden exit, according to Politico.
The Biden campaign denies that the president is considering an exit.
Meanwhile…
Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination last night, in a speech that stretched for 92 minutes, breaking his own record for longest convention acceptance address. (He actually holds the next two spots on the list: his 2016 speech was 74 minutes and his 2020 speech was 70.)
I’ll allow Politico to summarize the stem-winder:
When Donald Trump emerged on stage with a bandaged ear he somberly — and emotionally — recounted how he survived an assassination attempt.
And then, he veered straight back into MAGA mode.
Over the course of a 90-plus-minute speech in Milwaukee — the longest acceptance speech by a presidential nominee in history — Trump boasted about meeting with the head of the Taliban and how he “got along very well” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He went off on MS-13, immigration, crime declining in Venezuela by 42 percent and the media calling him a braggart. He called the streets of Washington a “killing field.” And he cracked a joke about Hannibal Lecter: “He would love to have you for dinner.”
Trump’s crowning moment — set up to be a triumphant return to center stage just five days after a bullet pierced his ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — turned into a meandering speech that resembled his usual rallies with macabre descriptions of a nation in decline.
…Speaking slowly and somberly, Trump detailed his brush with death on Saturday, saying it would be the only time he did so, because “it’s too painful to tell.” As the crowd sat in near silence, Trump described the moment a bullet struck his ear — when he felt a pain and thought to himself “it can only be a bullet.”
“I am not supposed to be here tonight,” Trump said, drawing chants of “Yes you are!” from the crowd. “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God. Many people say it was a providential moment.”
According to New York Magazine, Trump’s “prepared remarks, circulated to the national media, came in at a tight 3,000 words.” The actual speech, as delivered, went over 12,000.
As I wrote on Twitter: It has been true for this whole election that the best thing that can happen for either candidate is the other candidate opening his mouth.
That’s all from me for today. For paid subscribers, I’ll be back in your inbox on Sunday with the R&R email — lots to cover this week! I hope you all have an excellent weekend. Who knows where the political scene will be on Monday…
Footnotes
Well, three, if you account for Covid.
If anyone knows of a book about James Polk deciding not to run in 1848, let me know!
I had entered the bookstore planning not to buy anything, but that strategy almost never pans out. This time, though, I had to buy it! For you, the readers! At least that’s what I told myself.
By the way, another interesting difference between Johnson and Biden is their VPs. When Johnson told Hubert Humphrey he was stepping down, Humphrey cried and begged the president to reconsider. Personally, I doubt Kamala Harris would have the same reaction. It should be noted, though, that Johnson also made his decision out of consideration for who would be best to beat a hated rival. In his case, though, it was Bobby Kennedy.
“In two weeks,” Busby argued to Johnson, “Humphrey will have more money and more support than he ever thought possible because he’s the man to stop Kennedy.” Hmm…
As it turns out, he didn’t get either: the Vietnam peace talks fizzled. Still, at risk of sounding trite, I’ll quickly note another potential parallel: a hypothetical Biden withdrawal speech could very well come within days of a Gaza ceasefire announcement, which would further seal his legacy. (He could even do it at the Johnson Library, where he recently postponed a visit.) I know, I know — it all sounds a little “West Wing,” a president announcing his retirement and launching a peace plan in one fell swoop. I’d say so too — except for the fact that it’s happened once before.
Wow! A masterfully written article Gabe. As I left an appointment just 20 minutes ago I checked my email and saw yours. I started to glance over it while getting ready to leave and after two sentences had to turn off my vehicle, put down the windows and read. Your enthusiasm, voice and skill all absolutely shine here.
I too rarely leave a bookstore empty-handed and now I have a very good reason to stop at my favorite on the way home. I’m going to buy or order this book.
Isn’t serendipity wonderful? Finding the book on the one day you return during a near identical time in politics and being a journalist writing about said time…these kind of moments delight me. Thanks for sharing yours and your own wonderment at how it unfolded.
Kudos for your best writing and commentary yet.