The Campaign: The Wonderfulness of It All

With the fervor of an evangelist smoking out pockets of heathens, Lyndon Johnson in the last week of his campaign for election, went into those states where he thought the race with Barry Goldwater might be close. He roared through Florida, Georgia and South Carolina in the Deep South, through Indiana, Illinois and Kansas in the Midwest, through New Mexico, Utah and California in the West.

Tinsel Dreams. Considering himself assured of victory, Johnson often seemed carried away by the wonderfulness of it all. In San Bernardino, Calif., he made a sentimental journey to the Platt Building, where he operated an elevator as a boy 39 years ago, but his remarks about Goldwater were decidedly unsentimental. It would be awful, he said, if both Barry and Red China had the atomic bomb at the same time.

"I admire a brave man," he went on, "but some people have got more guts than brains." Embroidering his charge that Goldwater would send the U.S. "to hell in a hack" by tearing down programs that have been built up over the past 30 years, he added: "Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one." In Pittsburgh, Lyndon offered 13,000 partisans a storybook view of the future according to L.B.J. "So here's the Great Society," he cried. "It's the time — and it's going to be soon — when nobody in this country is poor. It's the time — and there is no point in waiting — when every boy or girl can have all the education that boy or girl can put to good use. It's the time when there is a job for everybody who wants to work.

It's the time when every slum is gone from every city in America, and America is beautiful. It's the time when man gains full dominion under God over his own destiny. It's the time of peace on earth and good will among men." In Los Angeles, where tinsel dreams are mass-produced, Lyndon sounded every bit as Utopian. "We are going to have to rebuild our cities," he said. "We are going to have to reshape our mass transit facilities. We have to purify our air and to desalt our oceans. We are going to make all the deserts bloom." Think Positively. Just how would all this be done? Never mind the details, said Lyndon in effect. Just think positively. "All we need to do now," he cried, "is to go around and talk about positive things. About the issues, about peace, about prosperity, about social security, about jobs, about medical care."