The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson #1)

by Robert A. Caro

a twenty-five-year-old congressional assistant—had defeated, in a small but bitter skirmish, the Vice President of the United States.

a lost candidate in a lost cause wandering around a huge district he didn’t know.

the most distinguished of the Stork Club’s headwaiters was a former Prussian cavalryman, Rudolf Kollinger;

Please tell me this was an inspiration for "Hello, Dolly!"

to entice Kollinger to private service, Marsh had had to hire as well not only his wife but his mistress.

A concert pianist from New York, who had monopolized the dinner conversation one evening at Longlea, was gratified, after dinner, to hear one of his recordings playing on the terrace phonograph. As he and the other guests sat there listening, however, Alice suddenly walked over and switched off the machine. “That’s the nice thing about having someone on a record,” she said. “You can turn him off.”

Almost totally ignorant of the mechanics of government, O’Daniel proved unwilling to make even a pretense of learning, passing off the most serious problems with a quip;

Sounds familiar