When Lyndon Johnson was a boy growing up near the Pedernales River in the Texas hill country his parents would regularly play a record on their Victrola.  But it wasn’t music. 

It was William Jennings Bryan, the Great Commoner, who was known for his charismatic oratory and populist ideals.  This was one factor, though small and symbolic, in how the future president developed the ideas he would work feverishly to translate into reality during his frustrated presidency.

Though he was no Bryan when it came to having a way with words, he did give a famous speech articulating his views – and initiating a torrent of policy initiatives – just a few months after he came to the nation’s highest office following the tragic death of John F. Kennedy in Dallas.  Johnson was riding high in the polls and en route to a landslide election that fall, when in May of 1964 he went to Ann Arbor, Michigan to deliver the commencement address before 80,000 at the football stadium on the campus of the University of Michigan. 

The past was very much in the tall Texan’s mind as he spoke that day – both distant and recent.  He likely heard the scratchy but memorable words of Bryan echoing in his brain, but he also was reminded that just one year before President Kennedy had used another commencement in another place very effectively.  That venue was American University in Washington, D.C. and Kennedy had talked of war and peace in a way that overshadowed the diploma distribution that day.  

Always conscious of any comparison with his far more elegant and erudite predecessor, Johnson was determined to make some history of his own. 

He did.

What he had to say that day – and all that followed – signaled sweeping change in how government functioned in, around, and over culture.   Lyndon Johnson talked in glowing terms that day about his vision for “The Great Society.”  His rhetoric did not match that of Bryan, nor his eloquence that of Kennedy, but his content was designed to pick up where another one of his heroes left off.  That hero was Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In a very real sense, as Barack Obama unveils – almost daily – new components of the kind of change he insists people voted for last November, the best historical comparison may not be the New Deal of 75 years ago.  It could actually be what Lyndon tried to do 45 years ago.  Of course, wise insiders will never admit this because it didn’t go that well for our 36^th president – or the country, for that matter. 

When President Johnson spoke to those gathered on that sunny afternoon he said:

“The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.

But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.”

And, in language with a where-have-I-heard-that-before ring:

“I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of White House conferences and meetings -- on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other emerging challenges. And from these meetings and from this inspiration and from these studies we will begin to set our course toward the Great Society.”

The most dynamic era of sweeping political change in a generation began that day.  Federal spending tripled over the next ten years.  And it took several decades to undo the damage – Nixon started the job, Reagan accelerated it, and – ironically – Clinton finished it off. 

But Santayana was so right.  History ignored is often repeated.

How does all of this compare to what President Obama is attempting to do these days?  Well, there are some clear and obvious similarities, but also some fundamental differences.

First, Johnson was no Obama - and vice versa.  Our current president is a much better speaker than LBJ (heck, Gerald Ford was), and has charisma reminiscent of that possessed by Jack Kennedy (a trait about JFK that LBJ both resented and admired). 

But charisma and speaking ability aside, Mr. Johnson was a much better personal politician than Mr. Obama – particularly when dealing with the egos, nuances, and patterns of Congress.  Most historians recognize (some very reluctantly) that John F. Kennedy was good at “speechifying” but lacked the ability to get stuff done on the Hill.  Johnson succeeded where Kennedy didn’t – or couldn’t.

It remains to be seen if Barack Obama can translate oratory and personal popularity into actual policy as he works with congress.  Will he be strong enough to stand up to leaders in his own party?  The mind fairly boggles at the idea of Lyndon Johnson being tempered by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D- Montana) or Speaker of the House John McCormick, much less by Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R- Illinois) or his counterpart in the House, Gerald Ford (R- Michigan). Continued...