An October surprise is a news event that may influence the outcome of an upcoming November Presidential election, whether deliberately planned or spontaneously occurring. Because election day is in early November, events that take place in October have greater potential to influence the decisions of prospective voters and allow less time to take ( Read more... )

On August 27, 1908 (116 years ago today) Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, was born in Stonewall, Texas in a small farmhouse on the Pedernales River. His parents were Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr. and Rebekah Baines. His father served five terms in the Texas legislature.


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Six years ago today, on Saturday August 25, 2018, Senator John Sidney McCain III died, following a battle with a very aggressive form of brain cancer. McCain was the last candidate to run for president on the ticket of a major party who was an authentic war hero and a prisoner of war. He had been the senior United States Senator from Arizona and ( Read more... )

When Lyndon Johnson became president following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he opted for a different approach to the issue of Vietnam than his predecessor was expected to take. Whereas Kennedy had talked about a decreased US presence in Vietnam, Johnson was a firm believer in what was known as "the Domino Theory" (i.e. the idea that if ( Read more... )

Gerald Ford is the only person ever to hold the offices of US Vice-President and President without being elected to either. He had been serving as the leader of the Republican Party in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1965 to 1973, a party then in the minority, when a twist of fate made him the 40th vice president under President Richard ( Read more... )

Richard Nixon's presidency was a remarkable time of transition, especially when it came to Presidential oversight. It was the age of network news, when the major television networks brought reports into the living rooms of the nation about what their government and their president was doing. Public trust in both of those had taken a hit. Many ( Read more... )

Lyndon Johnson once said of his Presidency, "That bitch of a war killed the lady I really loved, the Great Society.” That single sentence sums up Johnson's legacy pretty well. The son of a Texas legislator, Johnson was a graduate of a Texas teacher's college who once taught school to impoverished Mexican-American children. He worked as a ( Read more... )

In 1966, the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson was going through a difficult period. Johnson had enjoyed a period of success in his domestic agenda, which he called "the Great Society." It had produced meaningful civil rights legislation and the Voting Rights Act, declared war on poverty, and major health care reform with the creation of Medicare and ( Read more... )

On January 22, 1973 (51 years ago today), Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States died at his ranch near Stonewall, Texas at the age of 64 from a massive heart attack. Johnson had previously served as the 37th Vice President of the United States and he is one of only four people who served in all four elected federal offices ( Read more... )

On December 26, 2006 (just 17 years ago today) Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr., the 38th President of the United States, and the only person to hold the office without ever having been elected President or Vice-President, died at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, of arteriosclerotic cerebrovascular disease and diffuse arteriosclerosis. Up until ( Read more... )