In seven debates across the Illinois prairie, from August 21 to October 15,
1858, the great orator and statesman of his time, Stephen A. Douglas, the
Little Giant of the U.S. Senate, faced off against a curious opponent. The
other figure on the platform was almost a caricature out of the partisan
press of the time: an improbably lanky country lawyer, an ex-congressman
with an almost comically high-pitched voice and mountain-South accent not
made for fashionable perorations, an ex-Whig who had suddenly reappeared on
the scene as the candidate of a new, upstart party, an intrusive
embarrassment who kept raising troubling questions that just would not go
away.
From county seat to county seat, this improbable pair covered the thorniest
and most complex issues - the existence of slavery in the land of the free,
the preservation of the Union, the very meaning of the American experiment -
at a length that would not be tolerated in our oh-so-advanced times. And
they did so with a power and simplicity that makes a fascinating study even
today, maybe especially today. (Who besides those who have to would read the
transcript of a modern presidential debate the next day, let alone the next
week?)
What a contrast Lincoln-Douglas makes with what we now call a presidential
debate, which is more like a tawdry contest to see which participant's
dignity can be destroyed soonest. There is little time to fully develop even
a single line of thought in such a rapid-fire media event. There was
something not just empty but degrading about the spectacle in St. Petersburg
as the Republican candidates formed the usual line-up.
And yet there were saving moments even in this show. Especially when
immigration and its discontents dominated the disjointed discussion.
Everything seemed to quiet when the most soft-spoken of the usual suspects,
an old Navy pilot named John McCain, explained rationally and sadly how our
politicians, including himself, had failed the country on immigration.
Others might be interested in fighting the problem; he just wanted to solve
it.
But even as he spoke, John McCain seemed aware his was a voice in the
wilderness. There was something so tired in his words, and around his eyes,
as if he had explained this a thousand times before to no avail. As if he
were saying: Is this what public discourse has come to in this country?
Another moment of light was provided by the preacher on the platform -
another long-shot presidential candidate out of Arkansas. This year's is
Mike Huckabee, who sounds anything but tired. As he's risen in the polls,
he's become a prime target for the other candidates, which only seems to
invigorate him.
At one point the Rev. Huckabee stood accused by the suave Mitt Romney, who
looks every inch a president, of wanting to treat the children of illegal
immigrants fairly. It seems Mike Huckabee had been for letting these kids
compete for college scholarships with the classmates they'd gone to school
with in Arkansas. Shocking. To which he responded: "In all due respect,
we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did."
And that was all he needed to say, for behind that statement of simple
principle there was a whole range of biblical truths that this former
governor and still preacher has absorbed and was now reflecting: You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the
stranger. When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not
wrong him but you shall love him as yourself. For one golden
moment, the level of American political discourse had been raised, not
lowered.
Even in a setting made to advantage the showy and mean, it's just hard to
get the better of a man of one book. Especially if it's The Book.