Do The Right Thing... For Hillary Clinton

Did you support Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries?

She was a great candidate. She ran a fantastic, hard-fought campaign, and she deserves all the credit and recognition that she is being awarded right now at the Democratic National Convention.

If you supported Hillary, your fight isn't over. There is still one thing you can do to make sure all her efforts were not in vain. It won't take much effort, either. All you need to do is: put your heart and soul into ensuring that Barack Obama is elected the next president of the United States.

With Senator Clinton out of the race, voters may choose to follow her lead and switch their allegiance to Senator Obama. They may also choose not to vote, or (as some of them have indicated) vote for Senator McCain. The latter two options yield the same result: since record numbers of Democratic voters are needed to turn out for November's elections vs. Republican voters who tend to be more likely to vote, a non-vote will essentially benefit McCain.

Current polls are telling us that as many as 1 in 3 voters who supported Senator Clinton in the primaries may not vote for Senator Obama in November. I have diced and sliced this in many ways, and it all comes down to only a few possible reasons:

• Straight-up racism, which is indefensible in this day and age
  
• Feminists angry because the woman candidate didn't win, which is, in fact, reverse sexism
  
• Fearmongering about Obama's purported Muslim background, which is an out-and-out falsehood
  
• The cult of personality: people who just love Hillary, and won't hear of voting for anyone else
  
• The "inexperience" factor
  

This last one is the one that a lot of people use to veil the actual reason they won't vote for Obama. But to favor McCain over Obama simply on experience is missing the point: less experience is far better than the wrong experience.

It is unconscionable to me that a Hillary supporter would turn around and vote for McCain merely out of spite. To do so would fly right in the face of everything that brave woman stands for. It would literally undo every bit of good that Hillary's husband did during his tenure of office.

For example: Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (one of the few dissenting justices appointed by a Republican) is approaching 90 years of age. His replacement is certain to be a much more conservative voice in the mould of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, or Samuel Alito. If Justice Stevens is replaced by John McCain, issues dear to Hillary Clinton such as reproductive rights, civil rights for gays and lesbians, and environmental protection, could be thrown out the window.

I don't think Hillary Clinton would want her supporters bringing about an America in which Roe v. Wade is overturned. I think Senator Clinton would be insensed by the notion that some of her supporters are fearful of Obama because of his East African heritage, or because his middle name is Hussein.

Senator Clinton had a lot at stake in the primaries, but ultimately her hesitation to accept defeat in the face of an increasingly apparent reality all came down to a matter of pride. Pride, it is said, goes before a fall. And she has fallen, and now swallows her pride, and supports her former adversary. She is indeed humbled, but there is no shame or disrespect in her defeat: she ran a great race, and her camp has been instrumental in securing the DNC's platform for 2008. The presumptive nominee is espousing almost every cause dear to Hillary Clinton.

Therefore it is our duty, as those who respect her and who care for the principles upon which she campaigned, to see to it that those ideals and principles are upheld. And John McCain simply will not honor her principles.

• McCain has reversed his position on a woman's right to choose, stating that his would be "a pro-life White House."
  
• McCain has said that he would actively seek another armed conflict, this one with Iran, showing no sanctity whatsoever for the very real lives of our armed service men and women, by jokingly singing, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" to a Beach Boys tune.
  
• McCain has stated that victory is paramount in Iraq, and that if it takes a hundred years, he doesn't care. That means he doesn't care how many more soldiers die there.
  
• McCain's health care program benefits the insurance companies and pharmaceuticals industries by largely leaving their price-gouging practices intact, and shifts the burden onto patients themselves for how best to pay for care. McCain also seeks tort reform which benefits doctors who make tragic mistakes.
  
• McCain's economic plan involves more free-trade agreements, which hurt American workers. His plan to curtail government spending would leave huge gaps in every area of the Federal operation... except the war.
  

Do you really think you're showing your support to Hillary by putting that mentality in the White House?

Don't let Hillary's efforts have been in vain. Honor what she stands for. Please... please vote for, endorse and actively work to win the Presidency for Senator Barack Obama. America's future literally depends upon it.