Obama May Have Twitter, But Lincoln Was the First President to Go Viral | Underwire | Wired.com: “Lincoln was a master political strategist. He truly understood what it took to get the message out to the people,” said Schnall. ”He knew the speech would be telegraphed across the nation; within 48 hours every newspaper as far as California had printed the speech straight on the front page, which is exactly what he was aiming for. He was using the media of communication in different ways than a president had ever done before.”