Joseph A. Califano Jr. was President Lyndon Johnson’s chief assistant for domestic affairs from 1965 to 1969 and President Carter’s secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1977 to 1979. He has written several books. Some of the material in this article is adapted from his new introductory essay in the new edition of his book, The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years, which Simon and Schuster republished on February 3.

Lyndon Johnson got things done. Yes, he was a visionary—the architect of sweeping social and economic programs that transformed life in the United States and that still shape our nation today. But in the many hours I spent working for LBJ, I saw that he had much more than big ideas: He knew how to make them happen. How to trade, to cajole, to woo, to inspire—and, when necessary, how to intimidate.

With the nation’s capital stuck in partisan quicksand, the favorite chant of lawmakers these days is “Go to the middle.” You’ll hear it sung often by leaders of both parties, by President Barack Obama and even by some of those gearing up to succeed him. But candidates who want to travel in the middle of the road are likely to be sorely disappointed. The “middle ground” might look comfortable from afar. But for a president looking to go down in the history books with a lasting mark on the nation, the middle is more of a mirage than an oasis of historic achievement.


Better to go bold.

Just look at the historical record: Presidents who tried to appeal to both parties managed to pass perhaps one or two major bills over a four or eight years in office. (See Bill Clinton and welfare reform; George W. Bush and No Child Left Behind.) Compare these leaders to the three greatest progressive presidents of the last century—Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson. This presidential trio refused to go to the middle; they labored to bring the middle to them. Each in his own way mustered public support, persuaded members of Congress with arguments and appeals to how the national interest coincided with the member’s personal interest, partnered with outside groups, recognized that today’s enemies might be tomorrow’s allies (and vice versa), tended meticulously to the needs of key members of Congress—and, as needed, used veiled (and not so veiled) threats.

Of course, not every president has economic, social and political conditions that present the opportunity to enact historic domestic plans. But with issues like gaping income and education inequality, the challenges of climate change, the uniquely diverse nature of the nation’s population, the revolutions in technology, communications and energy rivaling the invention of the printing press, television and the industrial revolution, Obama’s successor will certainly have the kind of opportunity for greatness that can come from grand visions and bold initiatives.

And given what will happen to the country if we don’t start to struggle with the big issues, I think it’s time for a bold leader back in the White House—one with the courage to take high wire political risks and the street smarts to succeed.

Between 1964 and 1969, the 88th, 89th and 90th Congresses enacted hundreds of LBJ’s legislative initiatives—in education, health care, environmental and consumer protection, civil rights, immigration reform, housing and urban affairs, the arts and humanities, criminal justice and other fields. His programs touch the lives of every American to this day—from urban center to rural outpost, in schools and colleges, community health clinics and great medical centers, in even the air we breathe, the water we drink and the trails we trek. His initiatives created and support the theater, opera and dance groups we patronize, and the public television and radio we watch and listen to. He wrought changes that have altered what happens in voting booths, jury rooms and immigration offices. His consumer laws influence how most of the food we eat and products we buy are produced and marketed. Those Great Society laws and policies continue to shape our nation and fuel our public policy dialogue.

It’s a magnificent achievement—one that wouldn’t have been possible had Johnson sought only to appease his political adversaries and make safe political calls. When he first took office, and staffers were urging him to stay away from civil rights legislation in an election year, he scoffed at them. “What the hell’s the presidency for?” he demanded.

So, how did he do it? As Johnson’s chief domestic White House aide from 1965 until we both left in January 1969, I saw, up close up and in real time, how Johnson worked. I saw him inspire senators and powerful citizens of both parties to put their country ahead of their careers; I saw him work his aides (like me) and cabinet members to the limit and then demand—and get—more than they realized they had left. With powerful arguments, statistics, appeals to self-interest, flattery, favors and, where required, muscle, I watched him persuade legislative foes to support his programs and run around or over them when persuasion failed.

Once, a handful of liberal House members voted against a debt limit increase we needed to fund Great Society initiatives, protesting that the Vietnam War was taking up funds that would have been better spent on domestic programs. One Democrat cited the need for more public housing. Johnson wasted no time. “Call him, Joe,” the president told me. “Tell him we have plenty of money for public housing and we’ll put a big public housing project right in the middle of his fancy Westchester district.” With that call and a few others like it, the House voted to increase the debt limit.

When we needed the support of Maine Sen. Ed Muskie, who chaired the subcommittee considering our Model Cities bill, an ambitious urban aid package aimed at rebuilding entire ghettos, I told the president that Muskie didn’t have a single Maine city that would be eligible for funds under the program. “He does now,” Johnson said. When I asked which one, the president smiled. “Any one he wants,” he told me.

Johnson considered the 1965 Voting Rights Act his most important piece of legislation. During one of his many conversations with Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, whose support Johnson needed to get the bill passed, LBJ appealed to his place in history: “Everett, if you come with me on this bill, a hundred years from now there’ll be only two people they’ll remember from the state of Illinois: Abraham Lincoln and Everett Dirksen.” Johnson also made sure that Dirksen became a drafter of the bill so he would be fully invested in it and would vote to break the filibuster. He did. “You treat Everett Dirksen with the same courtesy and attention to his requests that you accord [Democratic Majority Leader] Mike Mansfield,” he repeatedly told me and other White House aides.

When House Judiciary Committee Chair Emanuel Celler stalled the Fair Housing bill for two years in committee because constituents in his overwhelmingly Jewish Crown Heights district opposed blacks’ moving into their neighborhoods, LBJ convinced House Speaker John McCormack and Minority Leader Gerald Ford to take the bill, which had already passed the Senate, directly to the floor without going through Celler’s committee. It got the bill passed, while also protecting the Brooklyn congressman from facing any serious opposition to his reelection.

All this is not to say there’s no room for compromise. Indeed, where necessary, LBJ found a way to use it to his advantage. In order to neutralize hospitals and doctors and pass Medicare and Medicaid, LBJ agreed to pay physicians their “usual, customary and prevailing” fees and gave hospitals cost-plus reimbursement for their services. That compromise also produced many Republican votes which were important to avoid future difficulties in appropriation committees and encourage Republican governors to support Medicaid. As a result these programs for the elderly and the medically indigent got off to smooth starts with all parties invested in them.

But here’s a warning for those who seek the White House in 2016: Monumental changes are not likely to produce political tranquility. Along with his historic legislative achievements, Johnson has left (and experienced) another enduring legacy: unremitting controversy. Perhaps the most vehement domestic political debates today center on how much government is too much government and whether the Great Society legislation has centralized too much power in the executive and legislative branches in Washington. But, should that lead future presidents to cower in the middle? Absolutely not! Here are three critical lessons from LBJ’s presidency—for those who have the courage and creativity to articulate historic visions and go after them tenaciously:

First, recognize that we are a Presidential Nation and the key to achieving bold initiatives and having a legislatively productive Congress is strong, focused, relentless, sometimes even ruthless, presidential leadership. Such leadership is essential if the nation hopes to see once again the mobilization of a majority 435 Representatives and 100 Senators to move legislation forward, with the minority accepting the vote however reluctantly. Only strong presidential leadership can bring order to 535 members of Congress from all sorts of jurisdictions representing constituents of widely varying faiths, backgrounds, needs, wants, interests and opinions—not to mention often conflicting ideologies.

Second, legislation survives. Changes require Congressional action, often by a sufficient majority to survive a presidential veto (see Obama mock House and Senate Republicans who threaten to repeal or amend the Affordable Care Act). Executive orders, on the other hand, can be edited or eliminated by a stroke of the next president’s pen. Johnson was under enormous pressure to impose fair housing by executive order. He repeatedly refused, saying that it would be too easy for a successor to change something so controversial (no initiative inspired nastier mail and phone calls to the White House). It took three years and all of LBJ’s legislative skills to get it enacted—and it’s still the law of the land today.

Third, any president who seeks to sculpt a lasting image on our society and history (and rare indeed is the president who suffers and survives the grueling, often lifelong journey to the White House who doesn’t want to do that) must recognize that bold is beautiful. His or her vision should be ambitious and grand—it should bring the middle toward his or her position, and not allow that vision to get blurred in the middle. Compromise is essential, of course, as LBJ and FDR knew. But they kept their eyes on the sparrow and used the art of compromise to move closer to their grand visions, not to abandon them.

LBJ’s administration oversaw an extraordinary advance of progressive government despite the tragedy of the Vietnam War, and it achieved striking success despite the turbulence and violence that accompanied the civil rights movement, anti-war protests and roiling cultural revolutions in sexual conduct and drug use. To me this demonstrates that even a president who makes a blunder as monumental as the war in Vietnam need not be not limited to middling domestic achievements. He or she still has the possibility of leading a government that can lift up the many as well as the few, that can not only can conceive but also achieve historic steps forward at home. That’s why presidential hopefuls—and voters deciding which of them to support—should view the Johnson presidency not an aberration, but as an example.