Hillary Clinton is a disasterous candidate and will be a horrible POTUS. Her comittment to public service takes a backseat to her ambition and I cannot stand the ammount of calculating she puts into all of her decesions. She is the antithesis of a couragous politican who would gladly sell Chelsea for a victory in November.
While I'm no fan of Hillary, I will absolutely vote for her if she is our nominee. I hope that doesn't happen but I'm nonetheless prepared for the worst.
As a John Edwards supporter who had a great deal of admiration for Barack Obama, I've repeatedly flirted with the idea of throwing my support to Hillary's toughest competetion. Needless to say, I'm sticking with my guy and will be with him until the bitter end.
While the polls indicate that Obama's campaign resonates the strongest among young people, John Edwards has excited me in a way that a national politican never has before. I think that Obama and Edwards are very similar candidates. The pundits correctly label each of them the "change" candidates while Hillary is the nostolgia candidate among Democrats who think Bill Clinton was one of the best presidents in American history.
While both Obama and Edwards are virulently opposed to the status quo, Obama's gospel of bipartisanship is incredibly dangerous and has the potential to devolve into the Joe Lieberman approach to politics. If an Obama presidency is to work as closely with the Republicans as his rhetoric indicates, we will see our Democratic principles compromised like never before.
The most important issues of our time are deeply rooted in ideology. Ideologically, we are a polarized country and the majority of any version of bipartisan legislation depends on the Senate's small group of moderate Republicans. Obama is dellusional if he thinks the average Republican in congress will be willing to compromise his or her principles on any ideological issue. From the conservative position on abortion to tax policy, compromise with a party whose Senate leader is Mitch McConnel simply won't happen unless we compromise our principles.
There are many issues that are not nearly as seeded in ideology where Obama is capable of making change. Despite only four years in the Senate, I applaud his effort to team up with my ultra right-wing Senator, Tom Coburn, in drafting some important legislation that addresses out of control earmarks. Earmarks, however, are a matter of common sense, not ideology. In a time where our debt is unacceptably high, a rampant earmarking process that doesn't hold legislators accounted for is unnaceptable and there's absolutely nothing about that position that contradicts Obama's Democratic principles or Coburn's wing-nut ideology.
Despite the danger I see in Obama's message, I honestly believe it is simply rhetoic. In Obama's career as a public servant, he has rarely deviated from a set of progressive, Democratic principles that I enthusiastically endorse. I can't see him starting an evolution into Joe Lieberman anytime soon and tend to ignore the forseeable dangers in his gospel of bipartisanship.
So if I think Obama will make such a great President, why don't I just drop Edwards and focus on keeping Hillary out of the White House? I know that John Edwards understands that America has a fight on our hands. And unlike the neo-con, Republican bullshit, that fight is here at home as we enter into another year in America's modern day gilded age.
While the media chides Edwards for appearing angry, I love his anger. I love his passion for social justice on behalf of America's most unforunate and unlike Hillary's occasional populist speeches, I feel an authenticity when I hear Edwards speak.
Two summers ago, I saw Edwards speak here in Oklahoma at a union hall down in Oklahoma City. While I wasn't nearly as invested in politics in 2004, Edwards was far from my favorite candidate. But after hearing him speak in person, I knew that I was looking at a politican with an unwavering comittment to socio-economic justice both here and abroad. He spent just as much time talking about the destitution in Darfur as he did with NAFTA and other important economic issues. Everything I saw in John Edwards that day was the exact opposite of what the Clintons represent and I think he has lived up to that impression throughout this campaign.
Even though I recognize Edwards' chances are hopeless, his presence in the race forces Hillary and Obama to be more populist. Although I'll be disappointed if Edwards ends up loosing to Hillary because of Edwards refusal to exit the race, I know that John Edwards will always fight for ordinary Americans like me and I'll be fighting for him for as long as he wants me to.