Lincoln the RINO. [ArthurK]

(How about a tiny little bomb to get our fireworksy weekend off to a hot start?)

Powerline has a little post about political compromise. Here's two paragraphs that hit me.

Then there is Abraham Lincoln. Henry Clay had been Lincoln’s favorite politician, a powerful orator who Lincoln himself had twice supported for president. But in 1848, Lincoln supported Zachary Taylor rather than Clay for the Whig nomination. "There is no doubt which of the two men ... Lincoln in his heart, and in the abstract, preferred," wrote the Lincoln biographer William Lee Miller. "There was no comparison."

Lincoln explained himself in a letter, saying, "Our only chance is Taylor. I go for him, not because I think he would make a better president than Clay, but because I think he would make a better one than Polk, or Cass, or Buchanan [all Democrats] or any other such creatures*, one of whom is sure to be elected if he is not."

*at least he didn't call them dicks!

That's something to think about when your deciding which candidate to support in the rapidly approaching primaries. Not to say that you should always go with the mushy, centrist guy but that you should appreciate that we're playing for high stakes and it's better to win slow than lose.

Lincoln - what a squish!

posted by Open Blogger at 04:47 PM

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