Why I Voted For Hillary Clinton

Heated discussions with friends and family are commonplace when opposite political parties are represented, but the Hillary/Obama divide has caused schisms among loved ones usually reserved for opposite political points of view.  I didn’t come easily to this decision, having been an Edwards supporter, but I realize that the best of all possible worlds would be a Clinton/Obama ticket, and so I have cast my vote for the junior senator from New York. 

I don’t believe in voting for someone based on the race and gender of the candidate.  However, what about the races and genders of the electorate?  Robin Morgan, the author and poet whose latest offering is “Fighting Words: A Tool Kit For Combating The Religious Right” wrote a piece called “I am not for Hillary Because She is a Woman – It’s Because I Am,” that Hilary Rosen has over at Huffpost.

Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she’s the best qualified of all candidates running in both parties. I support her because her progressive politics are as strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be a massive right-wing assault in the general election. I support her because she’s refreshingly thoughtful, and I’m bloodied from eight years of a jolly “uniter” with ejaculatory politics. I needn’t agree with her on every point. I agree with the 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama’s–and the few where hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like health care). I support her because she’s already smashed the first-lady stereotype and made history as a fine senator, and because I believe she will continue to make history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great US president.

As for the “woman thing”?

Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman–but because I am.

A vote for Hillary says Goodbye to gender and race discrimination, to generational divides, to ageism, and to a host of other societal maladies that a fresh start in America can begin to heal.  And a vote for Hillary gives me hope, hope that she chooses Barack Obama as her running mate to put yet another nail in the coffin of all the hatreds Robin Morgan so eloquently articulates.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.