The Path To Power by Robert Caro

LBJ knew how to accumulate power and to use it for his own ends. He knew how to make people like him. He knew how to make people see him.

“No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems—of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.”

― Thomas Sowell

Students of politics disagree on so many things, but there is a wide consensus on this quote by Thomas Sowell. We all agree that Thomas Sowell is right.

But how does this really work? And why does it succeed?

This is the life work of Robert Caro. The 20th Century and 21st Century greatest political biographer. When Robert Caro set out to write the biographies he has worked on, he made a commitment to use his books to explain to ordinary people how politics works in America. Theoretically, America is a democracy, and those in government draw their power from the ballot. Compared to many other countries, this is largely true. But this is not the whole picture. Politicians in the United States of America have also learned different ways to accumulate power and use it.

In this first volume biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, LBJ, Robert Caro takes us through the early years of Lyndon Johnson to his first senate contest, which he lost. You follow Lyndon, beginning with his grandparents and the difficult place they grew up. Lyndon Johnson's father was the rare one who rose to the peak within the family, yet he ended up poor and miserable. It seemed that the Texas Hill Country had made a curse on anyone who came from there. Life was difficult, and no one would escape it. But you see, LBJ was more than that Hill. LBJ was wiser than that Hill. LBJ was more cunning than that Hill. LBJ was more ambitious than that Hill. And he escaped.

When he was younger, his father told him, “If you can’t know who is for you and who is against you when you enter a room, then you have no business in politics”. This advice and many others became the defining feature of LBJ’s career.

LBJ knew how to accumulate power and to use it for his own ends. He knew how to make people like him. He knew how to make people see him. He knew how to help people and, in the same way, get people to help him. At San Marcos, he joined a “cult” group and turned it into a political machine for his ends. He got close to the Principal and used the Principal to achieve his objectives. When he became a secretary to a congressman, he used a moribund body again, built a power base, and achieved status amongst his peers and seniors.

One thing must be said about LBJ. His energy is incredible. Everything he went. He got things gone. When he got to teach at a school for the first time, he turned that school around and set it on a path to excellence. He knew how to inspire boys and girls to excellence. Mediocrity was not an LBJ thing. He rejected it. For LBJ, everything must be done well! Everything. He forced his aides to reply to messages on the same day. He pushed the bureaucracy to get help for his constituents.

His marriage to Lady Bird was done with the same energy that he did everything else.

As people interacted with LBJ, they realized that he was a man heading somewhere. He was on a mission. When he left Washington for the first time, he was a secretary. He told his colleagues he was coming back as a congressman. Two years later he was back. And he was a congressman.

He built a friendship with Sam Rayburn. This is not a book about Sam Rayburn, but I’ve fallen in love with Sam Rayburn by reading this. What an impressive man! He was a man whose words can be taken as they are. An upright man. As a child, he dreamed of becoming Speaker of the House of Representatives. It took him 30 years in Congress, but he achieved that dream! He didn’t lose focus. He didn’t want anything else; they offered him a senate seat. He refused. He just wanted to be Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America. He got it, and when he did, he knew what he wanted to do with it. And he did it.

Another interesting guy in this book is W. Lee O’Daniel. He was interesting for all the wrong reasons. He is a reminder that the politicians we see today are nothing new. Politicians will use anything to win power. O Daniel used religion. He became Governor of Texas and then became a Senator.

His Senate race with LBJ is where this book ends, and it sheds light on politics. That election was stolen just as LBJ stole some elections, too. As a Nigerian, this realization was a bit startling. It is not news that elections are stolen in Nigeria. But America? Well, evidence shows that there was a time when elections could be stolen in America. When we look at America today, all we see is the great, giant thing it has become; we don’t remember where it came from. This book is just a reminder. Every nation that became great had to work at it and became great through a process. This could be a message of hope for Nigeria and other countries struggling with this. America overcame all these challenges and many more. It kept strengthening its systems, and it kept becoming better.

I cannot end this without mentioning the role of money. Money. Money. Money! Money determines a lot in politics, as in many things in life. LBJ’s political career was built on money. The money he got by making deals with a powerhouse in Texas. Herman and Brown. They got what they wanted from LBJ, and LBJ got what he wanted from them. This marriage didn’t need a priest; self-interest was enough to keep it.

Robert Caro's work in this work can be seen in nearly every paragraph. I enjoyed it very much. I loved reading this work. It is over a thousand pages long, but I wish it was longer. Thank goodness, this is just volume 1. There are four volumes to go.

May Robert Caro be blessed!