The president most often compared to Joe Biden in our press and punditry is Jimmy Carter. High inflation, foreign policy disasters, and a general sense of hopelessness all fit the bill. But a decade before Carter there was a president who also resembled Joe Biden in many respects, including polling, and whose choice not to run for reelection in 1968 could be an example to Biden on how to save the Democrats in the midterms, and to save his legacy. That president was of course Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Biden and Johnson were both vice presidents for young and historic presidents, the latter for the first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, and the former for the first black president, Barack Obama. Both Johnson and Biden were viewed as old guys out of touch with the zeitgeist of the Democrat Party by the time they took over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and both presided over a period of cultural struggle, if not all out cultural war.
Then there are the polls. Leaving out the final year…
