A series of weird Presidential coincidences that dont have to do with the JFK and Lincoln murders.....

So if I told you I was writing a blog about a president who is normally thought of being from Illinois, but wasnt born there, who am I talking about?

How about if I tell you he only served 2 years in national office before becoming President of the United States?

Or if he served in the Illinois Statehouse for 7 years before he was elected to national office?

What about if I added he used to be a laywer?

He lost a parent early in life and was raised by his step parent?

Ok what about if I told you his election caused the opposition party, which was focused in the south to go bat shit crazy and talk about secession?

Or that he ended a war that started under his predecessor?

And that his predecessor was of the other party, and had made his party unpopular.

Or that that predecessor was viewed as one of the worst presidents of all times and as a traitor by some of his contemporaries?

What if I tell you his first came to national attention because of his speaking skills?

Or how about that he was considered a dark horse candidate, taking the nomination from a person who everyone insisted was the "sure fire lock" to win it?

What if I tell you he actually named that person he "took" the nomination from as his secretary of state?

And if that person after being secretary of state, returned to New York?

Or how about if I tell you one of this persons biggest election surprise was being able to win Indiana in his first election, a state, that traditionally is solidly behind the other party?

Or that his Vice President was a Senator from a small east coast state?

Or that his Vice President was also a lawyer?

Or that his Vice President remarried after the death of his first wife?

His terms in office were marred by his consistent trampling of American Civil Rights?

Or that he only ever Vetoed two bills that have come to his desk?

And that he passed a series of Tax increases?

Any idea who I'm talking about?

My guess is most of you out there read the first 5 or 6 statements and figured out who I was talking about, and you got the Secretary of State part and became sure. Now granted  you probably dont know half the points but they sound right. And a quick Google check would them all out anyways.

So lets be honest, their is only one choice here I must be talking about this man:

Nope. Wrong. Sorry.

Actually to tell you the truth EVERY single one of those above points is actually true and does apply to President Obama, Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Vice President Biden. But they were not the people I was thinking of when I wrote the comments.

See it turns out all of those facts applied just as truthfully to another American President.

This guy:

Lincoln, for those who dont know, was born in Kentucky. His mother died when he was 9, and he was raised by his father and stepmother (the reverse set up from President Obama). He served in the Illinois Statehouse for 7 years, then became a lawyer before serving a single term in the US House of Representatives (the mirror in that respect of President Obama in the Senate),

Lincoln was given his parties nomination instead of presumed nominee William Seward, in part because of his ability to win key [then] Northwestern states, specifically Illinois and Indiana as he did in the General Election (and unlike Obama, as he did twice, Obama lost Indiana the second time).

After he won, Lincoln turned around and made Seward the Secretary of State. When Seward left the office he retired to New York, just like Hilary Clinton....although she may not stay retired so its not a perfect match.

And Lincoln original Vice President was a gentleman named Hannibal Hamlin, who had managed to pass the bar prior to entering politics, just like Vice President Biden. Hamlin spent the majority of his career as a senator from Maine, and early on in his life, lost his first wife to an early death.

And everyone knows the reaction the South had to Lincoln's victory. The Civil War/secession crisis however started during the lame duck session, under Lincoln's predecessor James Buchanan, who did nothing about it. Even before botching the reply to the Civil War, Buchanan, a native northern, was seen by many in the North as a traitor due to his views of slavery and took much of the blame for "bleeding Kansas", while the south hated him for not being pro slavery enough.

Lincoln's reaction to session was very different than Buchanan's, he suspended habus corpus and had dissenters arrested and spyed on for reasons we would now call "national security/ Government spying on its citizens? sound familiar to anyone else?

People love making Civil War comparisons these days. To how these days are the most tumultuous since the Civil War, the continued use of the Confederate Battle flag, to even outright mentions of secession (cough Rick Perry cough) or just general name dropping of that period.

And people love making presidential comparisons and looking for odd connections between them (most notably Lincoln and Kennedy). Well heres a nice way to combine the two, AND educate people at the same time.

That said, I leave you with one final question......do you think we should have seen this coming? After all President Obama was inaugurated with the Lincoln bible AND used the Lincoln Table during the festivities of both his inaugurations.

Just saying, even from day one the comparisons were striking.......