Update/Correction to 5/16 HuffPost piece

I discovered an erroneous detail in my 5/16 Huffington Post piece, "HRC's Choice: Seward or Chase?"

Rather than simply revise the post and pretend (absurdly) to be infallible, it feels more honest and accountable to call attention to the detail I got wrong. I'll try on HuffPost itself and also here.

In Lincoln's era, the same convention delegates who picked the presidential nominee also picked the vice presidential nominee. So parsing Lincoln's choice of VP is pointless because Lincoln didn't pick his own VP.

It remains true that there's no Honest Abe Seal of Approval for an Obama-Clinton ticket. But it's also true, I now realize, that there's no obvious Seal of Disapproval.

Meanwhile, in trying to track down accurate details, I found this ...

http://www.archive.org/details/proceedingsofrep00repuiala

It's a digitized copy of the proceedings of the Republicans' 1860 convention. Very cool that such a thing even exists on the web. It shows us, among other things, that the delegates did not nominate Seward or Chase for the vice presidency. The tally of the first vice presidential ballot (see page 128) also suggests that the states which backed Lincoln most strongly did not get their first choice for VP.

Please post a comment here or on HuffPost if you think I have any other details wrong. Sorry for my mistake. Thanks for reading.

Comments

[J Kiem]

After the first day of the convention, I came looking for a Chase/Clinton connection on Google and came across David's column....(I too am ~600 pages into Team of Rivals-ya gotta read it!) David's analysis is MORE TRUE NOW than it was back when it was written. I voted for Bill every time he appeared on the ballot and I voted for Hil in the Illinois primary, and sent her a small donation. I stuck with them through Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell, Whitewater, Montica, and her petulant refusal to read the tea leaves earlier this year, which cranked her campaign debt long after the outcome was in doubt. All of this will be OK if she runs again. But if she plays Chase (or worse, Nader) and puts McCain in the White House, she had better not count on my vote ever again. It's time for her and her followers to get behind Obama.