He could follow someone’s mind around, and get where it was going before the other fellow knew where it was going. - Robert A. Caro

From the earliest beginnings of Lyndon Johnson’s political life — from his days at college when he had captured control of campus politics — his tactics had consistently revealed a pragmatism and a cynicism that had no discernible limits.

determining the essence of different points of view (what Lyndon Johnson called “listening”),

yet the realities of the democratic process in America make it almost impossible to get a road, a bridge, a housing project, a bathhouse or a park approved and built in two years — or four.