Let me be upfront in saying I don't like Hillary. Maybe I'm tainted by all the right wing smears on the Clintons over the years, but she is through and through a politician. I believe she will do anything to get elected, and will say anything to win over voters, more so than the other candidates. While this is the reason I don't like her, this is also a reason to vote for her. We need experience in the White House, experience that Hillary can bring that Obama or Edwards cannot. She knows the game and plays it well. Obama and Edwards are very adamant in telling us that they know the game but are not willing to play it. The game is beltway politics, and we need an expert in this game to be able to form and mold it in a way that can propel this country forward again towards progressive ideals. My greatest fear is that she is a DINO like Diane Feinstein and Jay Rockefeller: Democrats In Name Only. Her vote for the AUMF that led to our war in Iraq tells me that she very well could be, and her justifications for that vote are a good example of her willingness to cloud the issue without actually confronting it. While I may vote for her if she gets the party's nomination, I hope she loses the primaries. If I were a registered Democrat, she would not get my vote.
When I think of Obama's candidacy, I say to myself, "I want to believe". Just think of this possibility! A black man winning the presidency 40 years after Martin Luther King Jr. Was assassinated. A man who lived abroad with a unique vision of America from the other candidates, president of the USA at a time that we desperately need international leadership, and strength in dealing with Islamic states. A young man, without the stigma of "the 60's", and the illogical responsibilities that every other candidate reared from that generation has had to deal with. And I like him. Unlike Hillary, I think he is genuine and wants to lead us, not for power but because he believes in the dream that is America. We all have had that dream from time to time. Some of us may have forgotten what the dream is, or have decided that a utopia like the American Dream is unattainable. But Obama believes in the dream, and that is why I think so many believe in him. If he gets the nomination, I will vote for him.
Some might wonder why I do not give equal time to Jon Edwards. I want to, and he may be the sleeper, but unless he wins Iowa or South Carolina, which I don't think he will, I do not see him going very far into 2008.
