[QUOTE=Frank]
He served four terms in the Illinois House; one term in the federal House - which ended in 1849. His next political experience was a losing effort in the Illinois Senatorial election of 1858. Yet he was elected President of the United States in 1860.
The second greatest President in our history would not even be nominated today, let alone elected.
There has not been a President elected since 1952 who has not been an (ex)governor, (ex)Senator, or (ex)Vice-President. We’ve become an oligarchy of sorts. Why?
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I’ve not read the entire thread yet, so perhaps someone already has pointed this out.
What was General Eisenhower? He was elected in 1952 AND 1956, you know.
And I add my agreement to the assertion that Lincoln was only elected in 1860 because of the extremely fractured nature of party politics at the time. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against a united Democratic party.
[QUOTE=Steve MB]
According to the numbers, Lincoln would have won the electoral vote 169-134 even if the other three candidates had merged into NotLincolnTron and gotten their combined votes. He was able to win the electoral vote with about 40% of the popular vote because the latter was so lopsided (he got hardly any votes in the slave states and carried some of the free states by a narrow margin).
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But that doesn’t truly tell the tale. The fact that the Democrats were so splintered prevented them from running an effective campaign. Had they done so, they would undoubtedly have done much better than they did “collectively” against the Republicans in 1860.
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
You may be right, but Lincoln proved up to the challenges of running a Federal government vastly larger than any of his predecessors had led.
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Oh, absolutely. We were lucky in that respect. But because the circumstances were extraordinary, people weren’t conditioned to demand greater executive experience as a precondition of election.
Nowadays we know in advance that the government is big and complicated and powerful, so we do demand that experience. And in general, I think we’re right to do so–even though inexperienced people like Lincoln sometimes rise to the occasion, and experienced people (do I need to name names?) sometimes turn out to be doofuses.
As an aside, the last non-military non-politician to win a major party nomination was Wendell Willkie–oddly enough, also in a time of grave crisis.
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
You may be right, but Lincoln proved up to the challenges of running a Federal government vastly larger than any of his predecessors had led.
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Yes and no. As you aluded to, Lincoln was a manager more than anything. He got the best people to run their departments and was surprisingly able to control them, but it was his cabinet that “ran” the government.
Take Bush II as a prime example. I got my first bad feeling when he hired most of his cabinet members that think just like him. It was clear that Bush was not interested in people to run their deparments, but rather carry out his directives. Take NCLB and Margaret Spellings. Is she truly using her expertise to implement education policy in this country or blindly following Bush’s (ill-informed) orders? Do we even need to discuss his AGs and their role on the DOJ?
Here’s the thing. If a prospective candidate for president can’t get themselves elected Govenor or Senator for a couple of terms, how can they expect to win the presidency?
If you’re looking for someone to fill a leadership position, would you look for candidates who have previous leadership experience, or no experience? There has to be some reason to suspect that a candidate will make an effective leader, and if they haven’t shown any leadership qualities in the past there’s no reason to expect them to do so in the future.
It’s not so much that there’s an oligarchy of professional politicians, since people who have no previous electoral experience get elected to Congress or Governorships frequently. All it takes to break into the oligarchy is to convince people to vote for you, and running for lesser offices is a good way to find out if you can convince people to vote for you. If you fail to do that you might want to start wondering if your presidential aspirations are a bit unrealistic.
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
Usually when people say that Lincoln couldn’t be elected today, they just mean in the superficial sense of “He was ugly and thus could never run and win in the Age of Television.” Glad we’re digging a little deeper than that.
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This guy is a former Premier (like US Governor) of my state. He was a long-serving Premier (elected and re-elected) in the age of television. Imagine a beard on him and see who he reminds you of.
[QUOTE=Frank]
I think I’m missing your point.
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I think you get it.
Could a rich lawyer with a gift for speechmaking who could make people think he’d make things come out all right somehow get elected today? Is anybody really wondering that?
What has always fascinated me about Lincoln is the way he grew into his responsibilies in office, but it wasn’t at all obvious at the start that he would.
[QUOTE=Zsofia]
And it’s not that he’s ugly, it’s that he’s funny-looking. We’ll elect somebody who isn’t conventionally handsome, but Lincoln had such an unusual face that I doubt we’d go for him now.
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Speaking of funny-looking, I have some historical trivia: going from memory here, but, iirc, historian Shelby Foote mentioned that early in his first term, photographs of Lincoln were being sold in France relabeled with the name on an infamous murderer of servant girls (I forget exactly, Doumellard or Douillard or something like that). The implication was that Lincoln’s face was a good fit for lurid fantasies about depraved murderers – it probably sold better than the actual killer’s picture would have.
Could a rich lawyer with a gift for speechmaking who could make people think he’d make things come out all right somehow get elected today?
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I’m not positive I’m not being whooshed here, but the very obvious answer is Yes: John Edwards. Not necessarily that he would be elected – he was a distant third for the Democratic nomination, far less the general election – but that he was fairly broadly considered a plausible contender.
When we moved to North Carolina in 1998, he was in the early stages of his (successful) race to unseat Lauch Faircloth. He was not well known even in the state at the time. So far as I know, that was his first attempt at elective office (he may have served as planning commissioner or on an SCS board or something that I’m not aware of, but no significant offices)
Under the exact right set of hypothetical circumstances, I could see him winning nomination and election on the strength of one Senate term, plus his ideas and personal character. Which, I think, answers your question – if it was not rhetorical and intended to reference him, and I got whooshed.
[QUOTE=Sailboat]
Speaking of funny-looking, I have some historical trivia: going from memory here, but, iirc, historian Shelby Foote mentioned that early in his first term, photographs of Lincoln were being sold in France relabeled with the name on an infamous murderer of servant girls (I forget exactly, Doumellard or Douillard or something like that). The implication was that Lincoln’s face was a good fit for lurid fantasies about depraved murderers – it probably sold better than the actual killer’s picture would have…
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Heh. I’d never heard that story, or if I had, I’d forgotten it.
Lincoln was once accused of being two-faced, and wryly said, “If I had two faces, would I be wearing this one?”
[QUOTE=Sailboat]
Speaking of funny-looking, I have some historical trivia: going from memory here, but, iirc, historian Shelby Foote mentioned that early in his first term, photographs of Lincoln were being sold in France relabeled with the name on an infamous murderer of servant girls (I forget exactly, Doumellard or Douillard or something like that). The implication was that Lincoln’s face was a good fit for lurid fantasies about depraved murderers – it probably sold better than the actual killer’s picture would have.
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[QUOTE=gonzomax]
Lincoln would be accused of being elitist . He wrote and thought very well.
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But he countered being his actually being elite in the meritocracy sense with his “Aw-shucks, I’m just an ol’ country lawyer,” manner and regular-guy sense of humor–he read Artemus Ward to his cabinet, fercryinoutloud.
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
He still won the election that year, no?
A two-term president is elected twice.
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But that isn’t the point. He won the second election as a sitting President, which rules the 1956 election out as an example of someone elected without having held a major office of state.
[QUOTE=dropzone]
But he countered being his actually being elite in the meritocracy sense with his “Aw-shucks, I’m just an ol’ country lawyer,” manner and regular-guy sense of humor–he read Artemus Ward to his cabinet, fercryinoutloud.
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He left some great writing and speeches. It is not negated by Ward.
[QUOTE=aldiboronti]
But that isn’t the point. He won the second election as a sitting President, which rules the 1956 election out as an example of someone elected without having held a major office of state.
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[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
What has always fascinated me about Lincoln is the way he grew into his responsibilies in office, but it wasn’t at all obvious at the start that he would.
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I agree. Indeed, it wasn’t obvious to everyone during the course of the first term that he had done so. I think it reflects the fact that the country hadn’t seen a really good president of that type (managerial) for a long time, perhaps not since the time of the first five. Seems to me that Lincoln tried very hard to learn from whatever errors he made, and had a quiet persistence which allowed him to accomplish his goals almost despite the efforts of those around him to frustrate them.
