Yeah, alright, I'm voting for Hillary

Before today's revelations that the other person with a major party nomination thinks it's OK to "grab [my/your/their/our collective] pussy" because he's famous and so that's cool and therefore "[we/they] like it", I had made the decision to vote for Hillary Clinton.

As anyone who knows me or knows this blog knows, I have been - and still am - a passionate Bernie Sanders supporter. I cried when he didn't get the nomination. For many reasons.

However, here's the thing, of all four nominees for President (including libertarian and green), there is only one person who is qualified to be President and that is Clinton. I am not a fan of hers. I am not happy with how Bernie was treated by the DNC. I don't think she will be nearly as left-wing as many progressives have convinced themselves she will be, and she might bring us into yet another war and may not renegotiate trade deals that are disastrous. All this is true. However, what is also true is that the other major candidate is not only a sexist shit-head, he has zero qualifications for the job he is seeking. As in: 0. None. Nada. Zip. Zero.

Let's use the other candidate's favorite analogy: business. OK, so in business, you need to know your field and do well in it, right? Hiring the right person for the job is important. So if President is - say - in his lexicon CEO of the USA, then we - the electorate - are the Board of Directors. We hire that person. So, if I'm looking at a resume, I want to see that this person has some, you know, Experience in the field. So, let's review:

The business in this case is politics. Hillary has been Secretary of State for four years, a US Senator, and had the catbird seat of First Lady for this actual job for eight years. She also is a lawyer and has done lots of advocacy and oversight work in her industry - which is - as a reminder - politics.

The other major candidate has no experience in politics other than presumably buying political favors and figuring out how to game the system so he pays no taxes into government. This means he has learned how to fleece this industry, but has no experience trying to make it work. He does not prepare for things like debates and says whatever he wants. He has no diplomacy skills in a job in which diplomacy on the world stage is paramount not only to our security in the US but the whole world's.

The other two candidates have never held elective office. Johnson doesn't even know where or what Aleppo is, and Stein thought Brexit was/is a good idea. Let's face it, they are not ready for prime time.

I did - in case you are wondering - vote for Nader a few times, but unlike any of the above, he has actually gotten legislation passed that is the reason you can ride in a car and not get killed in an accident, because his laws mandated seat belts and other safety features. Nader is also the reason you can breathe the air and drink the water without dying. He lobbied for and got passed Clean Air and Clean Water legislation. In other words, Ralph Nader has arguable done more good for this country than any leaders combined in a while, but he's not running.

Neither is Bernie Sanders. He, too, was qualified. Eminently so, and he would be talking - with reason and solutions not bombast and empty rhetoric - about the problems of working class Americans, trade deals that favor corporations, raising minimum wage, getting government out of hands of Wall Street, etc., etc. But he is not running. He has asked those of us who supported him to vote for Hillary Clinton.

This is not why I am voting for her, though. I am voting for her because she is THE ONLY candidate running who is qualified to take on the job.

I'm not even getting into the issues here, just basic qualifications.

As to Trump's supporters, I hear you and know you think he can solve a lot of intractable problems and cure your anxiety about your deteriorating neighborhoods and jobs and sense of this country as a great place. I get that you think because he talks in a certain way and is definitely Not a politician in the traditional sense therefore he can get things done. But there is a problem with your plan. He isn't the re-set button you crave. (Like the meme: can we turn the US off and on again - which like who doesn't want that, really?) But, he won't be a dictator (because happily even if he does get elected, we still do have a Constitution - hooray!). So, even if you want him to do all the things he says he wants to do (and if you listen carefully you will hear that a lot of those ideas change and are in fact contradictory), he has to work with Congress - where no one will like him. No one. Not GOP, not Democrats. No one. For international issues, he has to work with world leaders. None of whom like him, except for maybe Putin and today's North Korean dictator. This dude is a lot of things. Team player is not one of them. No matter how fly you are, you have to find a way to work with people to do politics. Both Sanders and Clinton have worked in the trenches to make bills better (not what they wanted) and to do what they can. They both have decades of experience with this. Trump has: zero.

Do I wish I was telling you to vote for Bernie? Yes, I do. But again, he's not running. And even if I'm not a fan, I do know Hillary can do the job.

As another friend of mine said wisely, the best way to look at this election if you are truly progressive is not as if we are voting for an advocate (we don't have one with Bernie gone) but for our adversary. Do you want an adversary who at least believes in Some of the same things you do, such as equal rights for women, people of color, different faiths, immigrants, LGBT, etc. so you don't have to fight all those battles again? Someone who believes climate change is real versus someone who thinks it's a hoax (she types on a mid-70s day in October with the fan on in NYC)? Or do you want an adversary against whom you will have to re-fight even basic battles, such as a woman's right to choose, a gay person's right to marry, a black person's right to vote, etc., etc...

Looking at all these issues - along with the grotesque tape of Trump today bragging about grabbing women's 'pussies', leads me to say: I will be voting for Hillary. I am not 'with' her or whatever, but I will vote for her. Even in safe NYC, I will vote for her, because as yet another friend said, it will be important that she wins by a good margin or else there will be conspiracy theories and violence and all sorts by people who think she stole the election from the other candidate. While again I was not a fan of how the DNC skewed the primaries towards her, the fact is what they did isn't any different than what Kennedy did in 1960 to win his primary against Stevenson (look it up) and everyone thinks he's God.

I may add I am also not a fan of Bill Clinton being back in the WH who, I imagine, has said things as lewd, as Trump claimed today in his own defense. However, the fact is it'll be Hillary as the President, not him, and therefore we have a chance of having someone in office who doesn't think women are primarily to be fondled and used as so much play-doh.

That'd be nice.

Save your pussies (and uterus and well all of your whole body come to think of it)! Vote Hillary!