"How will this play in the polls?"

Bob Schieffer concluded "Face the Nation" on January 23, 2011 with some remarks on Obama's Tucson speech. "How will this play in polls?" is the usual question, but the better one is how it impacts people. We need to dial back on the rhetoric. We can be better, as the President reminded us. I wonder if some of us have forgotten.

Schieffer gave a livelier response to Ben Stein's suggestion on "CBS Sunday Morning" that Republicans run Barack Obama in the 2012 election, making him the first president elected by both parties. Recall that in 1864, Abraham Lincoln ran as a candidate of the Union party, with a Democrat, Andrew Johnson, as the vice-presidential nominee. Contemplate the various things Andrew Johnson tried to do in the 1868 presidential campaign.