A Familiar Precedent For a President-Elect

In recent weeks, Obama has talked with advisers about Lincoln's as a model administration. "All of our latest discussions about Lincoln centered around diversity of thought and vigorous debate on issues and being able to surround yourself with people you disagree with without being disagreeable, because you feel that it's going to lead to a better answer, the best answer," said Marty Nesbitt, one of Obama's closest friends and basketball companions in Chicago.

So why are so many parallels being drawn between Obama and the last president to call Illinois home? Let's consult David Herbert Donald, a Harvard professor emeritus and author of the comprehensive biography "Lincoln."

Both men "came out of nowhere," said Donald, who is such an exhaustive scholar of the Civil War president that he lives in the tiny Colonial town of Lincoln, Mass. "They came with great talent in oratory and in writing. They were able to reach out to voters and to people who had not taken much thought in the election prior to that, to say, 'This is important.' "

Richard Carwardine, a Lincoln scholar at Oxford University, said Obama's Lincoln connections go deeper than that. Obama has shown through the long campaign of gains and reverses that he is someone who "is extremely grounded, has a sense of his own strengths and capabilities and who is not afraid of surrounding himself with able people -- which was exactly Lincoln's temperament and personality."

In January, Obama will take the oath of office during the bicentennial celebration of Lincoln's birth. When Lincoln departed for his inauguration, he rode a train from Springfield to Washington, stopping in Philadelphia to deliver a speech at Independence Hall.

Yale historian David Blight has "a crazy idea" for Obama's inauguration: "Why not have Obama retrace the train route of Lincoln's journey to Washington? Why not a whistle-stop train ride to Washington? I think that would be an interesting symbolic step."

Obama, of course, already has given a historic speech, on the nature of race in America, in Philadelphia, just steps away from Independence Hall.