A wish for Barack on Abraham's birthday

As you may already know, today is the 199th birthday of the last president elected from the state of Illinois and as such I thought it only fitting I took some time to take a look back at that president's life as well as the life of the man who seeks to become the next president from Illinois.

                                                           

Oh, don't waste any time telling me how foolish it is to compare the two. I know how reckless it is to compare Obama to any president let alone the greatest who ever lived. Peggy Noonan's words on this subject are still fresh in my mind.

There is nothing wrong with Barack Obama's résumé, but it is a log-cabin-free zone. So far it also is a greatness-free zone. If he keeps talking about himself like this it always will be.

Mr. Obama said he keeps a photographic portrait of Lincoln on the wall of his office, and that "it asks me questions."

I'm sure it does. I'm sure it says, "Barack, why are you such an egomaniac?" Or perhaps, "Is it no longer possible in American politics to speak of another's greatness without suggesting your own?"

Fair enough. But perhaps due to my irrational exuberance as a proud Illinoisan, I can't help when reflecting on Abraham Lincoln's greatness also thinking about the potential of Barack Obama on this day when voters along the banks of the Potomac go to cast their vote to decide which person they'd like to welcome to D.C. this time next year.

                                               

Oh yes, I know Barack Obama wouldn't be an Illinois-born president the way that Hillary Clinton would be. But neither was Lincoln Illinois-born (Ronald Reagan on the other hand was... ugh) though I agree with Barack Obama that Lincoln was Illinois' greatest citizen.

What is it about this man that can move us so profoundly? Some of it has to do with Lincoln's humble beginnings, which often speak to our own. When I moved to Illinois 20 years ago to work as a community organizer, I had no money in my pockets and didn't know a single soul. During my first six years in the state legislature, Democrats were in the minority, and I couldn't get a bill heard, much less passed. In my first race for Congress, I had my head handed to me. So when I, a black man with a funny name, born in Hawaii of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, announced my candidacy for the U.S. Senate, it was hard to imagine a less likely scenario than that I would win--except, perhaps, for the one that allowed a child born in the backwoods of Kentucky with less than a year of formal education to end up as Illinois' greatest citizen and our nation's greatest President.

In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles. He also reminded me of a larger, fundamental element of American life--the enduring belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams.

In this piece that Obama wrote for a TIME issue on Lincoln three years ago -- and so hastily derided by Noonan -- I feel that Obama well demonstrated the important lessons he learned from Lincoln. While Obama doesn't whitewash Lincoln's shortcomings entirely, he seems to have quite the firm grasp on what made Lincoln such a great leader of this nation and revered as the greatest president of all.

[...] it is precisely those imperfections--and the painful self-awareness of those failings etched in every crease of his face and reflected in those haunted eyes--that make him so compelling. For when the time came to confront the greatest moral challenge this nation has ever faced, this all too human man did not pass the challenge on to future generations. He neither demonized the fathers and sons who did battle on the other side nor sought to diminish the terrible costs of his war. In the midst of slavery's dark storm and the complexities of governing a house divided, he somehow kept his moral compass pointed firm and true.

I don't expect Barack Obama to be as good a president as Lincoln, but that he might aspire to lead like him and to rule like him (as he has stated referencing the concept of a "Team of Rivals") is a pretty good thing in my book.

Then again, anyone who spends in a day in Springfield (and Obama spent 8 years) can't help but think and speak fondly about Lincoln and seek to be more like him. It's certainly apparent to me that for all the JFK and MLK symbolism that has been brought into this campaign, Obama has just as much absorbed a lot of that Lincoln history and incorporated it into his campaign and outlook on political life.

While Barack Obama grew up poor and struggled with the loss of a parent at a young age similar to our 16th president, Lincoln certainly by any measure had it much rougher than Barack Obama as a man with no wealth, no prestigious name, and most importantly no formal schooling trying to make a life for himself on the prairie frontier.

While Obama went to the South Side of Chicago to learn more about the struggles endured by South Siders -- especially African-Americans -- following the collapse of the rust belt economy of the 1980s, Lincoln's views on slavery were shaped in part by a flatboat trip to New Orleans where he witnessed a slave auction.

Though Lincoln would eventually obtain a patent for a navigational invention and campaign for political office based off a platform somewhat limited to issues of navigational improvements promoted by the Whig Party of the 1840s, that didn't prevent him from speaking out on other important issues of the day.

Like Obama, Lincoln risked his political career by speaking out against a war he felt was unjust.

In Lincoln's case that was the Mexican-American War, which was approved by Congress during the 2 years Lincoln served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Lincoln strongly opposed it thinking it an unjust and unconstitutional power and land grab by then-president James K. Polk.

This view was shared by future president Ulysses S. Grant, who served under Zachary Taylor in that war.

In 1879, while in China during his post presidential world tour, Grant told John Russell Young: "I had very strong opinions on the subject. I do not think there was ever a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico. I had a horror of the Mexican War, and I have always believed that it was on our part most unjust. The wickedness was not in the way our soldiers conducted it, but in the conduct of our government in declaring was. We had no claim on Mexico. Texas had no claim beyond the Nueces River, and yet we pushed on to the Rio Grande and crossed it. I am always ashamed of my country when I think of that invasion.

That said, in Lincoln's case his speaking out against the Mexican-American war remained more of a political liability than an asset lauded for sound judgment the way that many (including me) use it as an argument to bolster Obama's case for the presidency.

Still, there remain other parallels worth considering.

The same way that Obama's life story and history as the son of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas has helped his candidacy, Lincoln also got a lot of mileage out of his log cabin birth.

There is also the humble origins as a community organizer that Obama touts the same way backers of Lincoln would play up his railsplitting roots. Interestingly, neither Lincoln then nor Obama now talks all that much about his law career.

The same way that Lincoln was treated as "Honest Abe" in the public consciousness, Obama has received a lot of credit for his authenticity. Of course, the truth of the matter is that both men have been given to political consideration at times and for all their lofty rhetoric and inspiration they are still clearly political animals.

There is also the fact that Lincoln's national fame would come through his oratory during a campaign for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois as Barack Obama's did during his bid for the U.S. Senate.

In case you need a refresher on how you came to know who Barack Obama was four years ago I offer this:

Of course, Lincoln wasn't lucky enough to run against a fool like Alan Keyes and he would lose his battle to Stephen Douglas even as he raised his profile through the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Still, he would prevail over Douglas in the 1860 presidential campaign as would his view of a united and free America prevail.

That view was fairly clearly established in Lincoln's accepting of the Republican nomination for the Senate in the Old State Capitol where he deliver his famous "a house divided" speech about the future of America and whether it should remain half slave and half free.

Lincoln said 150 years ago:

We shall not fail - if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.

Yes, we can? ;)

                                                                     

Oh, can it really be an entire year since Obama announced his bid for the presidency just outside the Old State Capitol in downtown Springfield? Time sure goes fast. Here's hoping that this time next year as our nation commemorates the 200th birth of Honest Abe, Barack Obama will be back in Springfield for the country's Lincoln bicentennial addressing a crowd of thousands as our president rather than the Illinois senator he was speaking behind the podium at the grand opening of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum three years ago.

                                                   

But if that's not possible, here's hoping whomever we choose as our Democratic nominee, the candidate prevails to win the presidency so "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

And here's hoping that candidate appeals to "the better angels of our nature" and strives to honor the Constitution as the Framers intended in seeking to create "a more perfect Union."

...

And if you still need to find ways to celebrate Lincoln's birthday there's always the children's song my music teacher had us sing before us Illinois kids took off Lincoln's birthday (NOT President's Day):

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
What a wonderful man was he.

He was our 16th President.
Men are equal 100 %.

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
One great man.
L - I - N - C - O - L - N
One great man!

Or if you're more sophisticated there's always this classic:

Lastly, I would be remiss not to mention an Obama fundraiser going on right now that some Kossacks are advocating that encourages us all to drop $5.01 in honor of the senator from the Land of Lincoln.

And hey, if you're a Hillary supporter, don't be sad.

                                         

Surely this daughter of Illinois is worth that much today as well, right? ;)

Happy Birthday, Mr. President Lincoln! And good luck in the Potomac Primary, Mr. Barack Obama!