By Philip Rucker, Washington Post Staff WriterWednesday, November 19, 2008
He was a boy with a distant father, raised in a family of modest means. He had a curious intellect, devouring history and memorizing passages from Shakespeare. He became a lawyer and settled in Illinois, where he was elected to the state legislature. With relatively little political experience, he decided to run for president. Few believed he stood a chance of winning a primary campaign against the party's heir apparent, a senator from New York.
But the gangly, bookish Illinoisan galvanized millions across a country in crisis with his soaring rhetoric, speaking in big strokes about transcending partisan politics and creating America as it ought to be. He rose from obscurity to clinch his party's nomination and the presidency. The New York senator returned home deeply disappointed and bitter, having fallen to a shrewd political tactician.
Sound familiar?
Read the rest at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111803854.html
Watch Doris Kearns Goodwin talk about these connections at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/doris_kearns_goodwin_on_learning_from_past_presidents.html
- What do you think about this premise (the connections between Obama and Lincoln)?
- How can you use this information in your classroom?
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