![]() ![]() ![]() Johnson was born on a farm near Stonewall, Texas, in 1908, attended public schools, and graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College. During his two years as minority leader and six as majority leader, from 1953 to 1961, Johnson proved an innovative, forceful, and persuasive leader who broke old traditions and devised new legislative strategies to reach consensus and enact significant legislation. Both political parties were internally divided, and party discipline seemed impossible to exert. Johnson has aptly been called the “Master of the Senate.” He took over his party’s leadership at a time when his two immediate predecessors had been defeated for reelection, and when ambitious presidential initiatives had been stalled in legislative gridlock. ![]() Johnson to be a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and watched to see whether he could command his side of the aisle. Many considered Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. ![]() Eisenhower, a Republican, ineligible to run for a third term under the Twenty-second Amendment, political observers believed that the legislative successes or failures of the new Congress would strongly influence the next presidential election. With the presidential election of 1960 looming and the popular incumbent president Dwight D. After the Second World War, the Senate passed through a decade of narrow majorities held by both parties, but the mid-term elections of 1958 vastly swelled the ranks of congressional Democrats in both the Senate and the House. ![]()
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