AUSTIN (KXAN) — Before President Biden announced he wouldn’t seek a second term on Sunday, you had to go back more than 50 years to find an incumbent president who chose not to run for reelection.
“I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president,” President Lyndon B. Johnson said in a famous televised speech on March 31, 1968.
At the University of Texas at Austin, there are echoes of that other presidential exit, which came as a shock to many.
“Of course, this was the blockbuster that made enormous headlines around the world the next day,” said the director of the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum, Mark Lawrence, who is also a presidential historian.
Johnson, a Texas Hill Country native, read from a teleprompter script similar to a copy the library has on display. During a 40-minute speech on Vietnam delivered from the Oval Office, LBJ waited until the very end to announce he would not seek a full second term. Anger over the war and falling approval ratings were major factors in his decision, Lawrence said.
“I think he doubted his ability to win the nomination of his party and, certainly, to win the presidency again without a major fight,” said Lawrence.
The museum director sees striking parallels between Biden and LBJ: Both served decades in Congress before becoming vice president and then president. Both served as vice president to “very charismatic younger men” — John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama. Both also faced pressure from within their own party to step aside and were ultimately praised for exiting their races.
“Many voices within the Democratic party … wanted (LBJ) to stand aside in favor of Eugene McCarthy or Bobby Kennedy,” said Lawrence. “And, of course, he had many champions as well.”
On display in the library are two opposing buttons reflecting the party’s tug-of-war: “DUMP JOHNSON IN ’68” and “LBJ PLEASE STAY.”
“What’s easy to miss is how popular a decision this was,” said Lawrence, who noted history has “largely applauded” LBJ for not seeking reelection. “And, I think, what we’re seeing in the early hours after President Biden’s decision is something rather similar.”
Lawrence called Biden’s abrupt departure “a really remarkable act of statesmanship.”
“It seemed to me that he did the right thing for the nation by recognizing a lot of the doubts that were starting to creep in about his viability as a candidate and the risk the election could be lost to his party simply because of the perception that he was not up to the job,” said Lawrence. “And, this is the kind of decision that is all too rare in American political life, on either side of the aisle.”
He said LBJ’s departure was “more of a shocker” since “many Americans have seen the withdrawal of President Biden coming.”
At the LBJ Library, there is another echo from the past: The original 1964 Civil Rights Act is on loan, and on display, behind glass. The landmark law outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. It was signed by LBJ three months before Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was born.
“It’s really striking,” said Lawrence. “Sixty years ago this summer, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which demolished the old Jim Crow system in the United States and created vast new opportunities for African Americans and other people of color. And, here we are in 2024, with a Democratic nominee who is African American, who is South Asian, a really remarkable testament to where we’ve come as a society on matters of race.”
“I think that that bill 60 years ago was a major part of how we explain how we got to where we are today,” he added.
Biden was supposed to visit the LBJ Library a week ago to commemorate the anniversary. That trip was postponed following the attempted assassination of former President Trump and after Biden’s bout with COVID-19.
It’s unclear if the trip will still happen.