Lincoln Logs

Abraham Lincoln and his presidency are occasionally linked to JFK because they were both assassinated. But as I read more and more books about Honest Abe I'm finding interesting parallels between the 1860 presidential election and 2008. Anyone who paid attention in elementary school knows Abe was poor. He did his homework by candlelight and worked as a laborer to help out his family. But shortly after marrying Mary Todd he was painted by political opponents as the candidate of wealth and privilege. Similar to a certain young man from Hawaii raised by a single mother who occasionally was on public assistance. Barack Obama never had any real money until his last book was a best seller. He and his wife both spent time in public service. They were hardly starving but it's unfair to paint them as a elitist and rich. Another parallel is that Lincoln was a little known politician with nothing much to recommend him but a history of good ideas expressed in good speeches and a little time in the Illinois State legislature. Sound Familiar? Both Lincoln and Obama ran against more established men (and in Obama's case, women) but when the dust settled they were the ones left standing. Lincoln had William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates. Obama defeated Clinton, Biden, and Edwards. All six people made the mistake of thinking it was their turn and the young upstart was just one more minor obstacle on the road to the White House. Why do politicians always underestimate the public's hunger for something more? Why is the transformative power of one man with the answer and the ability to lead so impossible to see until you're standing on a podium conceeding an election to him?
I spoke on the phone to my 88 year old grandmother on Saturday. I know I'm surprised at the prospect of possibly seeing an African-American president in my lifetime, so she has to be about to fall over that she just may see it in her's. My grandmother grew up in Mississippi and as a woman of color was in her forties before she could vote. She's actually only a few months younger than the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote. And Barack Obama doesn't have her vote because he is black or simply because he is on the side of gender equality that she is, but because she beleives he can make America the place children in other countries hear about in bedtime stories.
Both Lincoln and Obama have run for the highest office in the land at a time when the wrong man could either keep his country together or preside over it falling apart. The United States of America is a grand idea. A bunch of people of different races, religions, ideologies, and backgrounds deciding to get together and pollute the environment, consume more of the world's resources than we produce, wage wars, and spread hegemony whenever and wherever we can. And it takes vigilance for the whole thing not to fall apart. Lincoln had that. America could be two countries right now. And I think Obama has that. So I think that we won't end up in a post-apocalyptic Mad Max beyond Thunderdome reality if he's elected.