'Abraham Lincoln: Wrong on Slavery, Wrong for Us.'

What if today's campaign tactics were applied to the election of 1860?

Crazed by this Presidential race, ad bloggers Make the Logo Bigger and Jetpacks ponder this question. Here's the fruit of their labours, "paid for by Friends of Douglas."

Contemporary context gave history both personality and a face. We laughed, we cried, we wondered -- ever so briefly -- what could have been.

Indentured servitude for me? Plantation micro-management for Steve? (Well, I guess one could argue that slavery was on its way out, even without that wee shove we dubbed the Reconstruction.) Propaganda aside, just how big of a deal is an election, anyway?