g sense of paternalistic concern for the people he would later represent. His was an instinctive, non-ideological, grassroots populism.
But he also learned the limits of depending upon mere popular support: Sam Johnson failed to build political party contacts who would insulate him from the whims of the electorate. Eventually voted from office, Sam Johnson was a ruined man. His son noted the humiliation - and decided upon dividing his own career between two support foundations: the voters and, of equal importance, the purveyors of political power whose "votes" were cast in the back rooms of whatever-level caucus a politician operated on. By the account of nearly every observer, Lyndon Johnson became the consummate "insider" politician.
Given the spirit of the times - Johnson first came to Washington as the secretary to a conservative Democratic Texas congressman, Richard Kleberg, in 1931 - Johnson's mode of operation did not carry the same stigma of distastefulness associated with back room politics today. Certainly Franklin Roosevelt recognized in the young politician a kindred spirit: abandoning the ideology of Representative Kleberg for the more powerful (and personally appealing) New Deal direction of government activity, Johnson was quickly awarded by his president with a number of administrative honors. He also used the young Texan as his own political "tool" to alternately persuade/ pressure recalcitrant Southern congressmen of the need to stay in step with the Northern president's march. Johnson became an adept at working with the congressional system, not at loggerheads against it. Later, as a Representative himself, and then in the Senate (where he was elected Majority Leader from 1953-60), Johnson gave colorful personification to the image of the Texas wheeler-dealer who talked big, acted crude - and got things done.
This was the key to Lyndon Johnson's political "ideology," if such there was one: ...