Landslide Lyndon

English

Etymology

Sarcastic nickname from the fact that Lyndon B. Johnson's 1948 run to a be a Texas senator needed a runoff in order to be successful, which LBJ won by 87 votes over Coke Stevenson, in a state with a large population. After 1964, there were more sincere uses due to his 1964 United States presidential election landslide win over Barry Goldwater.

Proper noun

Landslide Lyndon

1. (US politics, historical) Lyndon B. Johnson.
   • 1948 October 16, Doris Fleeson, “G.O.P. Needs Landslide to Get Texas Seat”, in Youngstown Vindicator:

     Hence, […] quiet fence-mending on the part of “Landslide Lyndon”, as he is now known to his friends since his 87-vote margin over Stevenson in the Democratic primary.

   • 1967 February 11, J.C. Goolrick, “JCG: This Week”, in The Free Lance-Star:

     Perhaps you have noticed a slight decline in your popularity of these past several months. Perhaps you get the feeling that if you ran for office today the “Landslide” Lyndon of 1964 would be more like the “Landslide” Lyndon who just barely made it back to the U.S. Senate from Texas.

   • 1990, Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent:

     The [coiner of the nickname] cannot be definitively established, although it may have been [Lyndon] himself[, who] was among those [to] make it a familiar part of the scene of insider Washington. “From the start, [he met] he did not know by sticking out a hand and saying, ‘Howdy, I'm Landslide Lyndon,’” [writes] Alfred Steinberg[.]