Working

by Robert A. Caro

Now what’s the relationship of this to Lyndon Johnson’s political activities? Of all his political abilities—and he had so many remarkable political abilities—one of the most remarkable was his ability to count votes. To know in advance which way a congressman or a senator—and during his six years as Majority Leader, he had to know every senator because he was often operating with a one-vote majority, 48 Democrats, 47 Republicans and Wayne Morse, an independent—to know how every senator was going to vote on a particular motion or piece of legislation. Vote-counting—accurate vote-counting: to be right in your count, when you have to be right—is a very rare ability. Sometimes a senator will mislead his Leader—the Majority or Minority Leader—about how he’s going to vote, or will say he’s undecided himself and isn’t going to decide until the last minute, or even until the roll call itself has begun, and sometimes a senator is torn between conflicting pressures or beliefs. One day he feels he’s going to vote Aye and the next day he feels he’s going to vote Nay. Sometimes a senator doesn’t know himself until the very last minute where he’s going to come down. And