I realize that we are way behind, but we must push on…

Just a few thoughts after reading the Rayburn chapter:

We are supposed to be struck by the similarity between Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn and Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr. But I was also struck by the differences. Rayburn was Southerner in many ways that Sam Johnson was not. I don’t get the impression that Johnson loved Robert E. Lee and hated Abraham Lincoln quite as much. Rayburn did not frequent the whorehouses on Congress Street, and he was a much more effective politician and arguably did become a much bigger man than Joe Bailey. He was also perhaps a much less tragic human being, his dying single and childless notwithstanding.

Parts of his career mirror more closely that of the younger Johnson. Johnson also had plans to advance very quickly, biding his time before he would reach the constitutionally mandated 25 years of age to be a Representative. Even after he entered Congress, he would have to wait, in despair, for years before a Senate seat opened up.