Politics: Abraham Lincoln, Vote Hunter

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Politics Abraham Lincoln, Vote Hunter Can Obama learn how to handle Congress from watching Lincoln? By John Dickerson Posted Tuesday, Nov 20, 2012, at 10:42 AM ET Steven Spielberg's Lincoln is so lush you feel like you're watching it in a velvet chair. The dark parlors and White House meeting rooms are full of fire and cigar smoke. The Lincoln played by Daniel Day Lewis seems so familiar it reminds you of the first time you heard him, except of course you never have. But after my wife and I watched the film, her first reaction was to say this: "I kept thinking about health care." She wasn't talking about the gritty scene at an Army hospital. She was talking about the Affordable Care Act. At the center of the film is Lincoln's fight to find the votes to pass the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, and though the bloody and muddy war scenes make the stakes quite clear, at its heart the movie is a math problem: How does Lincoln get two-thirds of the tick marks on the vote tally sheet to go his way? That's how a story about ending the enslavement of an entire race can remind you of health care reform. The math is the same in all big legislative fights: How hard do you push to get what is right when pushing too hard can spoil the whole enterprise? Not all legislative fights have the same moral weight. In much of the film, you see the tonnage in Lincoln's face and his hands and his walk, but when it comes to the legislation, while Lincoln captures the ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Has the South Risen Above Racist Voting Laws? The Case of the Vanishing Policy Memo From "Wetbacks" to "Illegals" to "Undocumented" to … ?	Advertisement
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