Black Lincoln

One would certainly expect any Senator from Illinois running for President to be a fan of Abraham Lincoln, but Barack Obama seems to be particularly fond of him. At first I thought this was strategic — Obama's way of embracing his blackness and black history while rejecting black nationalism. But Obama's affection for Lincoln appears to be completely genuine, and of an intensity usually reserved for nerd Presidents obsessing over Jefferson (JFK, WJC).

To wit: He launched his campaign in Springfield, Lincoln's city, rather than Chicago, his own. He's often cited Lincoln's relative level of experience in comparison with his own. He mentioned he had read the book "Team of Rivals", which describes Lincoln's cabinet. And then, through the googles, I find out that he was in the habit of writing essays like this before he ran for President. Obama has compared himself to the biblical Joshua on more than one occasion, and I always thought he meant for MLK to be Moses in the analogy. Now I'm not so sure. But whatever the case, it's clear that Obama is a major Lincoln groupie.

Now, this has probably occured to Obama before me, but Lincoln's greatest avoidable error was in 1864, when he chose Andrew Johnson (the only Southern Democratic Senator who remained loyal to the union) to be his second term Vice President. After Lincoln was killed, Johnson completely screwed up Reconstruction for three years (and was impeached for his troubles). How much better off would we as a country have been after the Civil War if Lincoln had chosen a better successor?

I'll bet this question, more than any electoral calculations, is weighing heavily on Barack Obama's mind these days.