6 November—Abraham Lincoln was elected President for the first time 163 years ago today. He did it with less than a majority of the popular vote, though, like Donald Trump, he strategically scooped up electoral votes.

Here’s the story. First, Lincoln’s running mate in 1860 was Hannibal Hamlin, whom you’ve never heard of, at the time the junior senator from Maine, former senior senator and everything else in and from Maine when he was a Democrat, converted to Republican because he was an ultra-liberal abolitionist and the Democrats weren’t. The good old days when Republicans were the good guys.

(Like virtually all Vice Presidents, Hamlin complained, “I am only a fifth wheel of a coach and can do little for my friends.” His friends indeed. Even though he wasn’t close to Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln didn’t like him, Abe and Hannibal worked well together.)

After his vice presidency, Hamlin returned to the U.S. Senate and at the end of his life was Ambassador to Spain.

Back to the 1860 election, there were at the time 303 members of the Electoral College, meaning 152 electoral votes were needed to win outright and avoid taking the election to the House of Representatives.

There were four presidential candidates that year: Republican hero Abe Lincoln; pro-slavery Southern Democrat John Breckinridge; Constitutional Unionist John Bell (whose party’s familiar sounding platform was simply “to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the Enforcement of the Laws”); and Democrat Stephen Douglas, of debate fame.

The turnout for that election was pretty impressive, just shy of 82 percent. The Lincoln ticket garnered 1,865,908 popular votes (39.8 percent), carrying 18 states and earning 180 electoral votes. (That, incidentally, was the second-lowest share of the popular vote among all winning presidential candidates in U.S. history.)

The Breckinridge ticket won 848,019 popular votes (18.1 percent) and carried 11 states for a noteworthy 72 electoral votes.

The Bell ticket carried three states with 590,901 popular votes (12.6 percent) and 12 electoral votes.

The Douglas ticket won an impressive 1,380,202 popular votes (29.5 percent), but they were scattered unstrategically, so he carried only one state’s nine electoral votes; that was Missouri. But he was able to get three more electoral votes from New Jersey, which gave Lincoln four. Don’t ask why. But Douglas got about 4,000 more popular votes than Lincoln in New Jersey, for all the good it did him.

Back to Election Day 2023, then, my advice, based on over six decades of political observation and experience, is, as always, vote early and vote often . . .

This just in, 6 November 2:00 pm:

Just found this letter dated 4 November. It was sequestered by the notoriously mismanaged Altice email server. So what else is new? Apologies to Val and Leslie Caron.

Election Day is a few short days away. Be an informed voter and actually showing up to vote is every citizen’s responsibility.

In Litchfield, the Democratic slate are all repeats whereas the Republicans are not. The Democrats have been pushing the line: “We have experience, so vote for us”.

Guess what: the Republicans also have experience. They have run businesses, been on town committees and worked for local fire departments for the safety of our residents.

We are believers in term limits for elected officials. Denise Rapp is running for her third term, as is Jodi Tenney. And Jeff Zullo if trying for a 7^th term. Time for a change. New selectmen with new creative ideas with traffic and public safety and fiscal responsibility at the top of the list is what is needed.

It is for the above reasons, we will be voting the Republican ticket for the beautiful town of Litchfield.

Valmore and Leslie Caron

Bantam, CT