Oberweis, Lincoln comparison bizarre

I choked a bit on my coffee Sunday morning reading L. Dean Hufsey's letter equating Jim Oberweis' candidacies to Abraham Lincoln's.

Lincoln's first run for state office in 1832 came within six months of his move to Illinois.

An unknown to Sangamon County, he lost that race, but he made a good enough impression in his new hometown of New Salem to muster 277 of the 300 votes cast. I don't think Oberweis was ever that popular with his neighbors.

On Lincoln's first run for the U.S. Senate in 1855, Lincoln was four votes shy of the 51 needed for election. Senators were elected by state legislatures at that time.

In a strategic sacrifice to keep the anti-slavery coalition intact, he gave his 47 votes to Congressman Lynn Trumbull, who himself only had five, thereby giving Trumbull 52 votes and the Senate seat.

With Oberweis' win-at-any-cost campaign strategies, it is hard to see him sacrificing for any principle, much less one involving justice for a lower class.

Only four weeks after his first arrival in Washington as a congressman, Lincoln introduced a resolution challenging President Polk to present evidence supporting Polk's declaration of war with Mexico.

Lincoln subsequently joined a resolution labeling that war as "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally" initiated by the president.

Oberweis's unquestioning support of war in Iraq is hardly Lincolnesque.

I'm no Lincoln scholar. I'll leave that to the likes of Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose "Team of Rivals" teaches us about Lincoln's early political career.

But I can suggest Hufsey review what Lincoln and his fellow Republicans stood for in Lincoln's day before granting Oberweis any more undeserved laurels.

Arthur P. Malm

Elgin