Obama strives for Lincoln touch

The spirit of Abraham Lincoln will suffuse Tuesday's inauguration day, as Barack Obama channels the example of America's greatest president for a national struggle to overcome the trials of today.

From the Bible that Obama intends to use at his swearing-in to the food he will eat afterwards, the 44th president is overtly invoking his illustrious predecessor in an audacious grasp at history's inspiration.

"The comparisons to Lincoln, which he has not run away from, set up a high standard, particularly for Americans who don't really follow politics," Princeton University presidential historian Julian Zelizer said.

"I think his goals are threefold: first to connect himself with a great leader; second, to place himself in a broader narrative about the nation overcoming its racial past; and third, about being a leader who can heal divisions in difficult times," he said.

In the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, Obama is reaching back to another lanky lawyer from Illinois who surmounted doubts about his political inexperience to win the presidency at a time of the greatest crisis.

President from 1861 to 1865, Lincoln steered the north to victory over the rebel south in the Civil War, abolished slavery and handed down some of the most inspirational oratory of US history.

His adroitly managed administration was a "team of rivals" drawn from his competitors for the Republican nomination, an example that the Democratic Obama has emulated in naming Hillary Clinton to his cabinet as secretary of state.

In his books and speeches, Obama has described Lincoln as his political hero. He launched his quest to become America's first black president from the steps of the Illinois state legislature, where Lincoln also served.

For the over-arching theme of his inauguration, Obama has dusted off words from Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg Address -- "A New Birth of Freedom."

There is a risk of rhetorical over-reach as the untested Obama takes office with the economy deep in crisis and US troops engaged in two wars. But he is not shying away from the comparison, re-reading Lincoln as he hones his own inaugural address.

"You know, there's a genius to Lincoln that is not going to be matched," he said in an ABC television interview, claiming to be "intimidated" at the

But like Lincoln, Obama says he will use his inaugural speech to urge Americans to come together in a spirit of sacrifice, defeat the present challenge and remake their nation as a "beacon for the world."

And intimidated or not, Obama was funneling the Lincoln example en route to the inauguration, on Saturday retracing his predecessor's train journey into Washington from Philadelphia and Baltimore.

Obama was Sunday beginning the official inaugural festivities with a public event at the imposing Lincoln Memorial, at the far end of the National Mall from Congress, where he will be sworn in Tuesday.

For that occasion, in front of a crowd expected by city authorities to number millions, Obama will rest his left hand on Lincoln's own Bible -- borrowed from the Library of Congress -- to take the oath of office.

Afterwards, Obama will sit down for lunch with congressional leaders, Supreme Court justices and members of his incoming cabinet to eat the kinds of food enjoyed by Lincoln.

The VIP guests will dine on seafood stew, wild game, root vegetables and apple cake off a replica service of the china set selected by Lincoln's wife at the start of his presidency.

But perhaps just as well, one Washington site intimately connected to Lincoln will not figure in Obama's celebration. Ford's Theatre, where the 16th president was assassinated, is closed for renovation.