Lincoln And Palin One And The Same These Lincoln Day Celebrations

Sarah Palin is to address a, no doubt excited, audience at the Orange County Republican's annual Lincoln Day celebrations in Sarasota Florida March 12th. Florida turns out in huge numbers for Palin and the attendance and media interest should be substantial.Florida would be a key state for any Republican nomination in 2012 and if Palin chooses to run it would be important for her to build on her support in this vital state with the party establishment which this address would go a long way to achieving.


There might be an opportunity to meet up with Marco Rubio who would be a perfect running mate for Palin as Florida would be absolutely crucial to the Republican electoral chances in 2012. If, early on election night Florida goes to the Democrats then Republicans should turn off their TV sets. If Palin wins it then the recovery of the lost 2004 Bush states would be underway and she would have every chance of winning in the electoral college.


These Lincoln Day celebrations give an opportune time to look at what was said about Lincoln as he set about his run for the presidency.He, like Palin, was subject to endless lies, slander, invective, personal attacks about his looks and family. There is no need to catalogue the endless list of similar contumelies directed at Palin,it is all so tedious and dreary,childish, facile and ignorant.But it is instructive to have a brief look at what was said about Lincoln and to see the echoes with Palin.


From a New York newspaper "He is not known except as a slang-whanging stump speaker of which all parties are ashamed" and from another newspaper "They (the Republicans) pass over statesmen and able men and take up with a fourth rate lecturer who cannot speak good grammer (sic),and who, to raise the wind, delivers his hackneyed, illiterate compositions at $200 apiece"....in return for the most unmitigated trash, interlarded with coarse and clumsy jokes, he filled his empty pockets with dollars coined out of Republican fanatics." Where have we heard this lately-allowing for $200 in today's money !


Moving on to appearance, this from a Charleston newspaper. "Sooty and scoundrelly in aspect, a creature fit evidently for petty treason, small stratagems and all sorts of spoils.He is lank sided of the uncomeliest visage, and of the dirtiest complexion. And from Houston " The leanest lankest mass of arms and legs and hatchet face ever strung out on a single frame". And as for family "He  had a child he could not acknowledge which his wife knew all about which is why she was sometimes unstable"


The parallels are clear, the same sort fanatical oppostion to Lincoln is directed at Palin.One must conclude that greatness elicits an equal and opposite level of small mindedness. That the level of hate directed at Palin is at the same level as directed at Lincoln shows the true measure of her potential greatness once in office.