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Showing posts from October, 2008

Lincoln and Obama

Before television or radio or even the phonograph there were songs. Songs were hot in politics. There was a song for every political position. Songs enlivened political campaigns and up until very recently promoted presidential candidates. Songs enabled people to invest in, participate and actually enjoy political campaigns. Although it was not necessarily true that the candidate with the best songs won the election. In 1860 many songs were created to be sung at rallies for Abraham Lincoln and for his rival Stephen Douglas. For whatever it is worth more songs were sung for Lincoln than were sung for Douglas. Consider one such song: Old Abe Lincoln came out of the wilderness Out of the wilderness, out of the wilderness, Old Abe Lincoln came out of the wilderness Down to Illinois Oh, aint I glad I joined the Republicans, Joined the Republicans, joined the Republicans, Ain’t I glad I joined the Republicans, Down in Illinois To get you into the spirit of the thing know that it was