A New Lincoln Presidency

Sen. Barack Obama was born in 1961. This is one-hundred years after Abraham Lincoln, the father of Emancipation was inaugurated and started the history changing path of ending slavery and planting the seeds of the modern civil rights movement. The commonalities and serendipity don't stop there. Lincoln was an Illinois lawyer who settled in Springfield. The first Republican party convention was held in Chicago, the town where Obama settled, and practiced law. So what does this mean? Are we to believe in a divine design of events that link these men and these facts? Are we to succumb to the conspiratorial story that many a mad conservative commentator may try to run with? Is this too good? Or is this just relishing the beauty of coincidence?

When one reads the biography of Lincoln he truly does inspire the belief that he was the greatest leader America has known. Imagine, you inherit a country on a one-way track to war with itself, you have been elected by a brand new party where no one really knows you outside of a few close operatives and friends you have made along the way, you choose to surround yourself by people that either hate you, covet your job, or don't believe you have near enough the capacity to steer the country in even the best of years. America was still wiping off the afterbirth of it's revolution, the industrial revolution was stoked but nowhere near a full burn, communication was still by messenger if you were lucky by telegraph, and to get from Washington to New York still took days. But in a little less than 5 years, he united the country, ended slavery, and was in control of the administration responsible for vast internal improvements, the creation of the IRS, income tax, and national monetary policy.

So in our jaded post-postmodern political reality we find ourselves a little less than 2 weeks away from, with all superfluous hyperbole aside, the most important election in maybe generations gone and yet not born ( I guess that was a might superfluous) . With the multitude of pre-election, last minute analysis available to the still yet undecided voter (as the recent SNL skit played on the question, 'If you are not decided at this point, do we really want your vote?') Regardless, here is my contribution.

Time magazine (http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1850921,00.html) asked a fantastic question and got some really smart people to try and answer it. What is the right temperament for the presidency? The short answer sort of depends on the time in which the presidency occurs. In the fractious heady days of the 80s with an unsure Soviet Empire crumbling, we looked to the Gipper for a calm hand and a reassuring smile. 20 years previous when we were even closer to oblivion we needed a scholar war-hero to bring us back from the brink of WWIII and inspire the country to a new direction and true world dominance. Wilson was the perfect man for rebuilding the country and world after The Great War. Conversely, we have just gone through 8 years of a president who was determined by most to be out of his depths, and proved us right with every policy decision he made in a time created by design for the acquisition of vast wealth for a few friends and the ultra-powerful friends of those friends (see: Blackwater/KBR/Halliburton). In the late 1830s/early 1840s America had a president in Andrew Jackson who forestalled it's great economic potential out of fear and greed and created a divisive socio-economic and political climate that culminated in the bloodiest war, the one the Lincoln did everything to avoid, than everything to win to save the Union. Lincoln's temperament has been judged to be almost out of reach of analysis. He showed relentless determination and took hit after hit with a smile, a poem and then brilliant policy. He was calm, and welcoming to a fault. His White House was one big open door. It was the people's house. He needed a team of rivals to think, to ensure that every possibility was discussed, but when he made up his mind, that was it. He was empathetic, trusting, and yes extraordinarily honest. In the time he lived it is argued that no other man of different temperament could have steered the country out of ruin.

Barack Obama is one cool cucumber. Maybe to a fault. People are saying, 'we just want to see him a little riled-up'!. But folks, it's just not him, and I would argue that's not what America needs. America is at a precipice. Crumbling infrastructure, failing economic systems, an unfair tax system, a racially divided nation, the legacy of a war that shouldn't have been fought: Iraq, the need for the continuation and intensification of a war that should have been fought: Afghanistan, a drowning public sector and well, a manufacturing sector being crushed by a changed and slowing global economy. Sound familiar? When will we ever learn that we keep doing the same things just in different ways. History doesn't necessarily repeat itself but it shows us patterns. Patterns that can be seen as mystic signs, powerful serendipity, or coincidences that we must take note and learn from. It showed us one-hundred and forty-seven years ago that we needed a man that knew what America was, needed to be and how to get it there. His sense of morality and decency was unparalleled. He dared America to think beyond what was known. It was said that there could have been better 'presidents' beside Lincoln. Seward, the New York Governor (yes, there's another one) was his chief rival. He was a master politician with a true grip on policy and at the time an even more staunch opponent of slavery. But the nuances of his character would have been too weak for the the pressures that ensued. He may not have been able to lead the country through the horror of the civil war. America has had a president for the last 8 years, but no leader. There are great women and men in both parties that understand the call to serve and have the requisite capacities to manage the office. But what a great leader has transcends all that can be learned. It just exists in the person.

Obama is a brilliant tactician, strategist and judge of character. He has proven it by the decisions he has made all his life and the people he has surrounded himself with. He is connected to people. He wants to help people. He can be trusted. In the time we live in I argue that no other man of different temperament can steer the country out of ruin. The perfect combination of words are passed down to us through the years to remind us of the fact that we have been here before, facing a home with the door to devil's gate ajar. As it is in song, Blind Alfred Reed asked "How can a poor man stand such times and live?", Honest Abe's words still ring and answer-"Though passion may be strained, it must not break the bonds of affection. the mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angles of our nature".

L.