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I Voted For Hillary Clinton
via Daily Kos by brownsox on February 04, 2008
MissLaura, Meteor Blades and DHinMI have each written wonderful pieces on the candidates they supported, and I’ve decided to do the same.
I voted for Hillary Clinton.
I have to admit that while I am a committed, and enthusiastic, supporter of Senator Clinton, my reasons for supporting her are pretty boring. I’m not voting for her because I have been deeply inspired by her, or because I feel a deep personal connection to her (she does remind me of my mother, a little bit, which is about the highest compliment I can give anybody, but that’s not why I’m supporting her).
Frankly I don’t see her as a transformational figure. I don’t see her as a symbol of a new generation for the Democratic Party or for the country. I think that if anybody in the race has the potential to be that figure, it is Barack Obama.
I am voting for Hillary Clinton simply because I believe she’d be the best president-because I feel as though I know what I’m going to get with her, and that I will be happy with it. That’s not exciting, I, and maybe it doesn’t make for good reading...but it’s why I voted as I did.
This is not to say that I don't find her personally engaging or inspiring. I do. Having watched her over the last few years, in fact, I've really been struck by how engaging she is in person. I've seen a warmth and a passion in her that I either hadn't recognized before, or didn't remember. I have started to gain an understanding of what my parents' friends would tell me about meeting her in 1991, how they were blown away not only by her eloquence and intelligence, but by her personal warmth.
And it is not to say that I don't find her personal story compelling-in fact, I find it rather remarkable, especially with regard to causes I care about. As a college student in the late '60s, she organized a student strike to pressure Wellesley College into recruiting more black students and faculty (there had previously been six black students at Wellesley, and no professors). She spent her years in law school working on behalf of abused children and migrant workers, and went to work for Marian Wright Edelman's Children's Defense Fund upon graduation. She campaigned for Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern and Jimmy Carter. She was the first person selected to give the commencement at Wellesley, and the first woman to be named a partner at the Rose Law Firm. These are things I admire very much about her-and they are part of the reason that I believe that she is passionate about making a difference in people's lives.
I think she's a very impressive person. But that's not really why I support her candidacy.
I’m confident in her ability to be an effective administrator for the country. I have been deeply impressed by her knowledge, her intelligence, her attention to detail, her preparation, and her diligence. And I am excited about the prospect of her bringing these attributes to the Presidency.
She is very good, too, on many of the issues I care about-healthcare, labor, environmental policy. And I don’t think she’d be a liability on foreign policy. Yes, I am still concerned about her Iraq vote-and Barack Obama’s consistent opposition to the war is a major point in his favor. I still believe, however, that she is, at this point, committed to ending the war, and that from her presidency we can expect a return to sanity in foreign policy. In truth, I don’t see a lot of daylight between Clinton and Obama on their positions-I think Clinton has an edge on domestic issues, while I’m a bit more comfortable with Obama with respect to foreign policy.
Hillary Clinton is an avowed partisan. In some ways, I think that’s a good thing. As she has said several times, the differences between the Democrats in the presidential race were, and are, relatively minor compared to the differences between the worst of our candidates and the best of theirs. I believe that as a general-election candidate and as a president, she would be aggressive in drawing these distinctions between Democratic and Republican philosophies. I think she will do this better than her husband was able to do, and I expect that her administration, if she is elected, will be more solidly liberal than her husband’s was. And I believe that her years of dealing with attacks from the right have equipped her to deal with them as President. We can safely expect the next president to become a target for Republicans...and I believe she’s well prepared for that fight.
Clinton has been pushing the "ready on day one" argument for some time, and in processing my reasons for supporting her, I do think a good deal about the prospects for the first hundred days of the next presidency.
But I think about this not in the context of preparation-although I certainly believe that she will absolutely be prepared to lead effectively from her first day-and more in the context of my understanding of what to expect from her presidency.
When I think about the prospects of a Hillary Clinton presidency, I feel as if I know what to expect-I have a fairly clear idea of how she would govern, what her priorities would be...and that is in fact my biggest reason for supporting her, although I’m not under the impression that she would be the second coming of FDR.
I like Barack Obama. A lot. As I said, I think he, and he alone, has the potential for a genuinely transformational Presidency. And that’s what I would hope for, from his candidacy and his administration. And if he is the nominee, which I think is quite likely, I will be every bit as committed to his election as I would have been to Hillary Clinton’s.
But while I hope for a historic change via an Obama presidency, I am more certain of what we’re going to get with a Clinton presidency...enough so that I cast my vote for her. If I had a clearer vision of what an Obama presidency would look like, in what fashion he would actually govern, I might well be supporting him. But I don’t.
So I support Hillary Clinton, and I have no doubt that-for me-I've made the right choice.
In closing...I am twenty-four years old, and I have known a Democratic President for exactly eight of those years. I was born during the Reagan years, in 1983. I was 17 when George W. Bush was elected.
I want to win this election more than anything, and I’m happy to embrace any candidate who can do that. I’m fortunate that I quite like both of our remaining candidates.
That said, I would vote for, work for and donate to a can of Seagram’s ginger ale if it were on the Democratic ticket this fall.
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