Walton had a malign brilliance for that sort of thing. Singing groups and massed choirs had their uses. But voters in 1964, he instinctively understood, were afraid. To reach them you had to exploit those fears. That was the technique by which Johnson was holding crowds in the palm of his hand: convincing them that he was the true conservative in the race—the calmer of fears, the bringer of order, the preserver of peace; the father tucking a vulnerable electorate in after banishing the monsters from under the bed with a bedtime story.
