So I’ve got it in my head to write a book about Lincoln.

About the 1864 re-election, to be specific.

The idea came up through a chance encounter with an editor at San Diego, and while I don’t know one way or the other if I’m writing the book for her, by the time I got home I knew that I wanted to at least do the research. I’m not a Lincoln scholar, nor a Civil War buff; in fact, I’m really just barely literate. But, still. Why not?

As we lurch into a midterm election season that truly reaps the rotten rewards of what these last, brutal, six years of empire politicking have gotten us, as we gear up for another fall of finding out exactly how low we can go, as we wait for the inevitable collision of fear, racism, classism, ignorance, pandering, glad-handing, buck-passing, and overall doesn’t-anyone-here-know-how-to-play-this-game-ness of what the American political body has become, I want to think about Abraham Lincoln.

Here’s a politician whose policies literally lost half the country. Here’s a guy that saw a three-year war spill blood up and down the nation. Here’s a guy that made the decision to once and for all exorcise the ghosts that even Jefferson couldn’t shake, to break the last despicable chain of our great shame and to force America onto a path that would, even a hundred years later, see Watts burn and the American urban core collapse in fear and ignorance. Lincoln could’ve won re-election without getting out of bed had he agreed to ending the war but not slavery-- how does The Constitution how it is; the Union how it was strike you as a campaign slogan? Because that’s what Lincoln was up against-- and yet he refused. He would shatter the will of the confederacy across the strength of his convictions; he would fight of mutiny within his own party, a full-on assault from the opposition party, and, you know, The Civil War.

These days, every time I see Rumsfeld call me a Nazi sympathizer for daring question his wisdom-- every time I see Bush tell Brownie he’s done a heckuvajob-- every time Kerry blathers for twenty minutes without ever actually getting to his point-- every time Edwards wants my vote because well golly he’s just so handsome and good-- every time McCain equivocates and the end of the puppet strings he’s wrapped around his neck-- every time the GOP makes racism a matter of public policy, and the DNC forgets to get suited up for game day AGAIN-- these days, I think about Lincoln, and what it used to mean to be President, and the terrible weight that man must’ve carried to do the right thing.

And that he chose to carry it because it was the right thing.

And I am staggered.

So, anyway. A graphic novel about the election of 1864. Maybe.

At this point I'm just noodling around, reading up, looking for the threads that tie together. Hunting angles and characters and all that. I’ll record my progress here. Just to see what happens and to track how it goes.