No Way, No How, No McCain

I love Hillary Clinton. I love her values. I love her politics. I love her drive to push boundaries and chip away at the glass ceiling with a life-size hammer. That being said, what I like most about her is that she is, well, a woman. There I said it. Call me sexist if you like, but as a woman myself I was beyond thrilled that a woman was finally saying that she too deserved a chance to run for the highest position in the United States. It was about time!

I stood by Hillary’s side until the bitter end. My roommate’s mother actually asked me how I was doing after the news broke that Obama was going to get the nomination. I was devastated, I told her. I didn’t know how I was going to get on the Obama-train after he’d shattered my dreams (and that of countless others) of seeing the first woman in history head to the White House. I was angry, but instead of wallowing in despair I channeled my anger in the direction of a new dream – a Dream Ticket. If Hillary couldn’t be President, she’d be VP. Forget the naming calling and rivalry of the last few months. The past was history and it was time for the kind of change I could believe in – a power Democratic partnership of man and woman.

Turns out I was wrong. Hillary wouldn’t be President and she wouldn’t be Vice President. I was crushed. Now what? There was no way I would switch teams, but I couldn’t help feeling betrayed by Obama and his supporters. How could he not see that Hillary was the best choice? How could I abandon the first woman to go where no other woman had gone before? Well, after Hillary’s speech last night at the Democratic National Convention I realize that I have no choice but to support Obama just as she has so humbly done. A vote for the opposite would be a vote for four more years of more of the same abysmal Republican policies. As Hilary so eloquently and cleverly put it:

“John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn’t think 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize social security and in 2008 he still thinks its ok when women don’t earn equal pay for equal work. Now, with an agenda like that it makes perfect sense that George Bush and John McCain will be in together next week in the Twin Cities because these days they are awfully hard to tell apart.”

To quote Hillary again, “No Way. No How. No McCain.”

Hillary may no longer be in the running but her politics and values remain. I will make certain that my vote in November ensures a Democratic victory and the election of the United State’s first Black President (another remarkable milestone). And why not make history two terms in a row? Next election, thanks to Hillary, the possibility of a Madam President is not nearly as foreign as it once was and if we’re lucky we may just get a Hillary comeback.