Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #2)

by Robert A. Caro

The telephone calls were to local Johnson managers in thousands of precincts all across Texas. Some of the calls were to ask the managers to be vigilant against any Stevenson attempt to steal votes in their counties. But other calls had a different purpose: the local managers were being asked to “re-check,” and, in the re-checking, to “find” a few more votes for Johnson. So far as can be learned—or at least proven—forty years later, Johnson personally made no telephone request that votes be added to his totals. Clark explains that the men in the Brown Building did not want the candidate to make such requests himself; when questioned as to whether that was because Johnson “might be asked if he had called,” Clark nodded. Rather, the purpose of Johnson’s calls was to reassure the local leaders that they would be with the winner when all the votes had been counted, and to give them a sense of personal contact with the candidate. “We weren’t asking him to say anything illegal, but it was important that he give them recognition, that he tell them everything was going to be okay,” Clark says. “Because we still needed them—to validate their votes, to stand behind them.” Of course, it was not necessary for Johnson to make requests himself; others were making them on his behalf.