How would Lincoln vote today?

With the Lincoln birth bicentennial here, everybody wants a piece of Lincoln’s mantle, his heritage. And, under the guise that Lincoln’s position on many issues of today, based on his positions then, would be “mysterious,” mantle-grabbers claim anything they want.

Poppycock, says Michael Lind, who notes in a well-thought Salon article that we DO know a lot about The Great Emancipator’s thought on enough political issues to extrapolate to today.

To use a fading term, the Lincoln of today might well be a Rockefeller Repubilcan. Or, a neoliberal Democrat. He probably would have opposed NAFTA and the WTO. He would certainly favor government intervention into the economy. He would likely support Social Security and Medicare.

That said, to the degree he saw the Democratic Party, more than the Republican Party, as a party of interest groups, he might be leery about it.

He certainly wouldn’t be a member of Grover Norquist’s Club for Growth.

And, he’d be even less a member of the Religious Right.

Read the full article for more such insight from Lind.