It was late August 1864 and President Lincoln was in deep trouble.

For nearly 3 1/2 years, civil war had raged across the continent. From Maine to Texas, brother bled brother as 1.5 million men marched across an increasingly desolate landscape as war took its ugly toll on the country.

In fact, much more than Iraq is today, the war had degenerated into a hopeless quagmire with no end in sight.

The Democratic party was licking its political chops. General Sherman’s army was stalled in front of Atlanta by confederate General Joe Johnstons’ guerilla tactics. Johnston used his cavalry expertly to cut Sherman’s long supply lines while manuevering his army to keep Sherman out of the Georgia capitol. Result: stalemate.

Farther north outside of Richmond in Petersburg, VA, Grant and Lee were giving an enormously bloody preview of World War l as their two massive armies squared off in trenches inflicting hundreds of casualties every day. Every move Grant made to break the stalemate was matched by a Lee countermove. In the process, Grant had lost more than 120,000 union soldiers killed or wounded just since April (at Cold Harbor in June, Grant lost 15,000 men in 20 minutes).

At their convention, the Democrats nominated war hero General George McClellan. Their platform was simple: The war is a failure and the north must negotiate with the south to end it. The Democrats wanted to use the good offices of the French and British to “mediate” the dispute. Everyone knew that the practical result of such “negotiations” would be two separate nations.

Republican operatives across the North told Lincoln that all was lost. They said that people in the north were tired of the war and that the President stood little chance of winning. Lincoln himself despaired. He had his cabinet sign a statement (a statement he wouldn’t let them read) saying “...it seems exceedingly probable that this administrtaion will not be reelected. Then it will be my duty to cooperate with the President-elect as to save the union between the election and innauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground as he cannot possibly save it afterward.”

Of course, Lincoln went on to victory. But what the election of 1864 showed, and why it’s relevant today, is that we should never underestimate the courage and determination of the American people to see something through to the end.

John Kerry has miscalculated. He believes he can bring up the spectre of the draft, of Viet Nam, of QUAGMIRE into the campaign and that he will ride this anti-war wave into the White House. But being a liberal elitist, he is out of touch with most Americans on the Iraq war. No matter that most Americans believe it might not be “worth it” in the limited sense that the pollsters have asked; no matter that a majority of Americans think the war might be going badly at the moment; it doesn’t even matter whether or not Americans think Bush “misled” them on Iraq.

It doesn’t matter because elections are not about the past, they are about the future. John Kerry will lose because Americans don’t really care much HOW we got where we are in Iraq, they only care how a candidate will take us to victory. Flip flops aside, Kerry’s “plan” to win the war is no different than the President’s-except, of course, Kerry will wave his magic wand and 100,000 Frenchmen will magically appear in Bagdhad.

There will be ups and downs over the next few weeks. Bush may stumble in the debates (more likely the MSM will SAY that he stumbled). Things could really start to go badly in Iraq. We could be hit with a very bad terrorist attack (that the loons of the left will probably blame on Bush). The point is, don’t get too down. Have faith in the American people.

Lincoln did…and won in a landslide.

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You can always tell who’s a liberal: If it stands still, they want to regulate it. If it moves, they want to tax it. If it attacks America, they coddle it. If it disagrees with them, they destroy it.