Ray Bateman, New Jersey Great, Succumbs

Ray Bateman at a Christie Town Hall Meeting, April 11, 2013

If you have not yet checked your newspaper, smartphone or TV, you may not have learned that the Garden State just lost the presence of one of its finest public servants.

 

All major news outlets have already covered the details of his life, all of which include an abundant list of his lifelong achievements in journalism, political and educational realms.

Today’s (Sunday) edition of My Central Jersey, as well as the Courier News print edition, carries one of the most complete accounts of his life, so I won’t repeat those here.  I would, however, like to share a few words with you from another perspective:

Clinton v. Trump: Politics, War and the 2016 Presidential Race – Part II

This post is the second and final part of an essay dealing with the application of power in politics.   

Part I addressed how, in the 1960’s, Lyndon Baines Johnson interpreted the nature of power and of how he used it to push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, despite almost overwhelming opposition from his own Democratic Party, and of how he unsuccessfully expanded the Vietnam War.

Also, Part II of this essay describes my understanding of how Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump view the application of power, and of how their insights about it are not dissimilar to the forceful manner by which power was employed by LBJ.

NEARLY SIX DECADES AFTER LBJ, THIS IS WHAT POWER LOOKS LIKE IN THE QUEST FOR THE PRESIDENCY: 

 

There are early signs that the initial preparations being made by advisers for both Clinton and Trump will result in a presidential race that has all of the hallmarks of political warfare similar to that which LBJ employed to get his results.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is anticipating Trump’s no-holds-barred onslaught, but will not likely respond in kind – she will leave that job to her proxies.

Expect that she will attempt to maintain her composure during forthcoming debates, while still pushing back very strongly against Trump’s fierce and fiery language, (if that’s what he chooses to do) – a barrage of words not heard in public at this level during my lifetime. 

      

Nonetheless, Trump is unlikely to change his approach materially, since it is what propelled him to this point in his campaign.

However, his previous strategy may not be effectively sustainable without behavior modification.  He is getting distracted by self-inflicted forays that have nothing to do with his campaign, but are placing him under an unfavorable spotlight, even among some of his high level supporters.

The latest incident was Trump’s comments about Gonzalo Curiel, the Federal Judge currently presiding over the Trump University lawsuit – a completely tangential affair having no direct impact whatsoever on Trump’s presidential hopes, but one that minimizes his judgment and questions his ability to compartmentalize.

Clinton v. Trump: Politics, War and the 2016 Presidential Race – Part I

This post is the first part of an essay which addresses the topic of power politics at the highest levels of office in the United States, especially at the presidential level. 

 

Today’s writing sets the background for describing the nature of the current run for the U.S. Presidency as I see it by harkening back to the days when Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson (All the way with LBJ!!) assumed control of the Oval Office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The second and final part of the essay will follow on the next post.

It will deal with the power plays and tactics which we might expect to see employed by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the red heat of their run for the Presidency of the U.S.

IT HAPPENED THEN, ALMOST SIX DECADES AGO:

“All the Way” is the title of an award-winning play that depicts the tumultuous years of the LBJ Presidency during the 1960’s – a time of the Kennedy assassination, of racial strife, and of the acceleration of the Vietnam War.  Enough of an agenda to test the mettle of any president.

Recently, Pris and I viewed that play in Washington, D.C. courtesy of our daughter and, a few weeks later, on a PBS special of the same name.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was a master political strategist and tactician who knew how to cajole, twist arms, and effectively threaten – anything to get his programs through the U.S. Congress.