Don't vote McCain because Hillary lost

I can't speak for anyone else, but I am sick and tired of the Hillary Clinton supporters and their sense of personal injury that they didn't get what they wanted.

The belief that the only reason she didn't win is because she's a woman is a belief that is blind to the truth. She didn't win for all the possible reasons that people didn't want to vote for her. Every candidate has people who don't vote (and who do vote) for them for the wrong reasons.

I didn't vote for her in the primaries because she's too much of an insider, too much like her husband (who was little more than a moderate Republican except in the area of a few social issues,) and a true politician's lawyer. I know a lot of women who didn't vote for her because, like her husband, she's too slick and ready to compromise her ideals and our country. Nancy Pelosi is a woman I would have voted for, before she showed her true colors by backing down on almost every substantive issue as Speaker.

But, I didn't vote for Obama in the primaries, either. Why? Because so much is unknown. Will he cave to the concerns of big business and the power brokers? Is he more style than substance? Can he really stand up to the likes of Dick Cheney's military industrial complex? There are a lot of unknowns.

I didn't get who I wanted out of the primaries, either, but I will vote for Barack Obama.

Not because he's my first choice, but because he's the best choice of the available options. He should at least be given the chance to show he can walk his talk - we already know McCain can't. I think we can also see the great effect which campaign finance reform has had. Ralph Nader is nothing more than the political equivalent of Danny Bonaducci - a fallen star trying to grab anything to get back in the spotlight.

A vote for John McCain is a vote for failed policies that turned a surplus into a record deficit. A vote for McCain is a vote for the expansion of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned of. A vote for McCain is a vote for allowing Blackwater and other mercenary groups another chance to harm civilians at the next natural disaster. A vote for John McCain is a vote for offshore drilling, a weakening of the EPA and the Endangered Species Act, and every other form of policy that promises that my children and their children are likely to inherit a toxic wasteland overseen by the sons and daughters of power brokers who never have to answer for their crimes.

In short (I know, too late), if your choice is to vote for John McCain because Hillary didn't win, well I guess we know that you and your hurt feelings are the only important matter at the center of the universe.

Edward J. Herdrich

Elgin