Lyndon Johnson and the matter of his stolen election: the sham that is our history of Democracy.

I see this pop up about Lyndon Johnson.

he probably stole his own election to the Senate.

Well, Johnson’s defenders — I’m pretty sure this is what you’ll get if you bring up the 1948 Senate election at the Johnson Presidential Library for instance — have/had always maintained that his ultra-conservative strait-laced opponent Coke Stevenson had just as egregious a hand in voting improprieties.  This is not quite right — Johnson’s post-midnight manufactured votes stick out like a sore thumb.

More to the point, Johnson probably “legitimately” won the Senate seat in the Special election of 1941 against sentimental country and western singer and radio personality W Lee O’Daniel, as much as legitimacy can be ascertained in these elections.  Johnson failed to steal the last vote, and his backers in the Liquor Lobby double-crossed Johnson, opting to get the “Dry” O’Daniel out of the state and thus out of their hairs.

So, really, as you can see, four wrongs make a right or two.

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