Uniters and dividers

Gosh, if I can only remember what happened last time when a pres candidate said he was a uniter and not a divider, I might be able to choose correctly.

Obama is totally right. I'm drawn to him as a candidate in no small part because I think he may be the most able to calm the toxic partisanship of the last decade. Not everyone will like him, of course, but I'll be satisfied with someone that half the country doesn't *hate* from day one. Giuliani probably fits that profile as well, but I prefer a Democrat. If Hilary is the Dem nominee, I'll have to give it some good hard thought. I'll probably vote for her, but it will be a joyless vote cast with much trepidation.

I've liked Obama ever since his 2004 convention speech and fell in love with him when he spoke out against 8th grade graduation ceremonies. ;o)

I'm not sure that being a "uniter" is necessarily better than being a "divider."

Abraham Lincoln was a divisive figure, but was perhaps America's best president because he was divisive. If Lincoln had not called slavery a moral evil, perhaps the American South would not have viewed him as divisive.

The real question is this: is this or that candidate for president trying to move the US in the correct direction? On that basis, almost all of the candidates for president (of both parties) are not divisive enough. In order to move this nation in the right direction, you have to be willing to take on the "consensus" assumptions that are, in fact, wrong.

That's what Ronald Reagan did and this nation benefited from his divisive leadership.

Abraham Lincoln's whole Prtesidency was based on unification. In his case, he had to fight to make it happen.

But he was not averse to compromise. He wold have been willing in the early stages of his Administration to allow the continuance of slavery in order to preserve the unity of the country, and he clearly said so.

But, once the war was fully joined, he saw abolition as both a moral and military imperative. He knew that the nation could not endure "half slave and half free" and that the slavery issue had to be resolved. So he resolved it in the only way that made sense.