On Thu, 19 Jun 2008, Doug Henwood wrote:
> 'Obama says he wants to hire a Team of Rivals for his Cabinet. He should
> start by keeping Robert Gates': 'Barack Obama has never been shy about
> comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln. ... Obama has said he admires
> Doris Kearns Goodwin's wonderful Lincoln biography, 'Team of Rivals.'
> 'He talks about it all the time,' says a top aide.
Oh no. That is one of the stupidest and wrongest arguments Goodwin ever made. Lincoln didn't put those guys in his cabinet because was broad minded. He was forced to put them in his cabinet by his convention managers who made deals with them in order to get him the nomination. Lincoln wasn't at the convention because back then it was considered unseemly for presidential candidates to campaign. All he told his managers was not to bind him. But they ignored him because they considered these deals sine non quas for getting him nominated at all. Lincoln was everyone's 2nd choice, but probably in line behind four other guys, all of whom ended up in his cabinet. And to be fair, this was SOP back then in pre-primary days.
Lincoln hated the idea, raged against it, and it was terrible in practice for exactly the reasons you'd think -- his rivals, all of whom thought they should be president, squabbled with each other and undercut him.
Michael