Lincoln Lost

Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of Pres. Lincoln's birth. Speeches , reassessments of the man and his time as President etc. My comment today is an observation that came to me after a discussion with a southern relative not very long ago. If you look at the voting map district by district as I have it does not take a math major to realize that the current Republican Party has become a deeply Southern Party. It reminds me of the old solid south when it was Democratic. My uncle Belton was what was referred to as a yellow dog Democrat. They could run a yellow dog for office and they would vote for them. This of course stems from the Civil War and Reconstruction. The last Presidential election that was close to a solid south election was 1964 when Johnson was elected in a landslide. Much has changed in the intervening yrs. The Civil War is still close to many a southerners heart. The War of Northern Aggression as it is sometimes referred to down there. Pres. Lincoln it seems to me has become the crazy aunt in the attic for the conservative Republicans. One of the founding fathers of the Republican Party , the man obsessed with Union and the Gettysburg address. He is now the family embarrassment to many southern Republicans. Pres. Obama it seems has taken over the Lincoln Brand. The new man from the midwest paying frequent homage to the former. The current regional Republican Party does not know what to do with Lincoln. This I believe weakens the party , lessens it's history and
impact on the present. As the Republican Party attempts to reconstruct itself as it did after the 1964 election should be aware of the biblical adage of gaining the world and loosing it's soul. For Lincoln seems lost & yet to be rediscovered by his parties ancestors.