ABSTRACT
Lyndon Baines Johnson was a man of abundant energy and impressive determination, capable of exerting himself to the point of physical breakdown. Governor Coke Stevenson was a public figure, widely known and widely respected; people called him, with affection, "Mr. Texas". The difference in goals, constraints, and resources between the two candidates will explain why Johnson made a headlong descent into the baser kind of pragmatic strategies, and why Stevenson, refusing to do so, did not win the election. This chapter focuses on the 1948 election for the Senate primary, when Johnson defeated Governor Stevenson. In the 1948 stolen election in Texas, Stevenson clearly would have benefited from an honest election and Johnson would have been disadvantaged. British laws and conventions in India obviously worked to British advantage, until Mahatma Gandhi was smart enough to use the same laws and conventions against them.
