Lyndon Johnson was born in Stonewall Texas on August 27, 1908. Both his father and his grandfather had served in Texas Legislature. So in my opinion he had a little bit of a head start over others in his future upcoming run for presidency. even though his father and grandfather had served in the legislature his family was still poor. After he got out of school he had odd jobs untill he decided to go to the Texas State Teachers College. After college Johnson started teaching at Sam Houston High School.
During this time his political career started when he went to Washington DC as a legislative assistant to Richard Kleberg. Johnson was a strong supporter of the new deal and president roosevelt. So he was appointed director of the National Youth Administration. Johnson was elected to the house of representatives in 1937 and made his famous promise that "If the day ever comes when my vote was cast to send your boy to the trenches, that day Lyndon Johnson will leave his Senate seat and go with him." In 1941 Texas senator Sheppard died and Johnson tried to take his place but was beat out by O'Daniel.
In December 1941 Johnson kept his promise, and joined the navy. Johnson was awarded a silver star which many people thought was very undeserved because he only flew for 13 minutes before the airplane generator had problems and they had to turn back. he was basically and observer in the bomber.
in 1948 Johnson ran for senate and won. and in 1953 he was chosen to be the democratic minority leader. After so much of his success in the senate he had a chance at the democratic presidential candidate for the election of 1960. Kennedy was elected as the democratic candidate and offered Johnson a spot for Vice President. They won the presidential election and everything was ok up until the kennedy assassination. Vice president Johnson was sworn into office 2 hours and 8 minutes after Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Johnson won the presidency in 1964 by a landslide victory over Barry Goldwater. There was a lot of controversy over a ad played that was called the daisy ad. it showed a girl picking the petals from a daisy and counting to ten and when she reached ten a voice counted down from ten. When this voice hit zero the a atomic bomb exploded in the background. This tried to show that if Barry Goldwater was elected president there would be nuclear war. There was even more controversy only 2 weeks after Johnson was elected because West Germany and France had issued a tariff on US chickens and Johnson created a tax on light trucks, potato starch and other goods. The rate of the tariff was 25% which in my opinion and the opinion of others was totally outrageous.
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Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAjohnsonLB.htm
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