Why Hillary?

Why Hillary?

By

Leonard Zwelling

         I readily admit to being extremely ambivalent about voting for President this year. I find both major candidates loaded with flaws and that the choice this year is among the worst ever. But, given that adults are supposed to vote and given that these two are the choices spit out by the two party system, one has to choose. Despite the fact that I had previously predicted that she would lose and that I wouldn’t vote for her, Hillary Clinton will get my vote for President.

         Why?

         The NY Times outlined the reasons for my choice very well in its two pieces for Hillary and against The Donald that I have attached below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/hillary-clinton-for-president.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/opinion/why-donald-trump-should-not-be-president.html

         However, it really is far simpler than that.

         No matter how flawed and how many missteps Mrs. Clinton has taken in her long career, she has clearly done some good for others, especially for children and families. Mr. Trump has never done anything for anyone but himself and his family. He has cheated others in business. My guess is that Mrs. Clinton is exactly right and that he has paid few if any federal taxes in recent years and that he is proud of that fact. (“That makes me smart”). There can be no other reason his taxes have not been made public. But more than anything else, as the debate on Monday night showed, she has the stamina and chops and intelligence to be President and he does not. He simply is too ill-informed to lead the nation and that he has millions of followers that are equally misinformed only demonstrates why he is so dangerous. Frankly, he has no idea what he is getting into and feels that he is smart enough to handle anything. He’s not. On Monday, he couldn’t handle Mrs. Clinton or Lester Holt. What does that say about his likely success against Putin?

         I wish there was a young, earnest middle of the road Republican running for President, if you can find one of those any more. I wish there was a conservative Democrat in the mold of Scoop Jackson running. Alas, there is not. Bernie pulled the Dems way far to the left and Cruz and his crew pulled the GOP to the far right. The middle is void of intelligence. So sad.

         The interviews that the media is doing with Trump supporters are frightening. That Americans with access to a computer could say such silly things about a man such as this is horrific. Donald Trump’s language is a giveaway. He simply is not that smart. My guess is that his taxes would reflect that as do his four bankruptcies. He’s not that good a businessman. He’s not that good a leader. He’s not that good a person.

         On the latter score, neither is Mrs. Clinton. She has lied and exaggerated. She came very close to committing espionage and surely jeopardized American secrets to the same extent as General Petraeus. She has rolled her bus over many within the White House and after. She has surrounded herself with people who either give her bad advice or give her good advice that she ignores. No one married to Anthony Weiner is qualified to be advising a candidate for President. (See the movie Weiner if you have any questions).

         All that being said, we have to choose. Johnson and Stein are wasted votes in our current system of government. Neither can get elected and neither could govern given the likely make-up of the Congress. It’s Trump v. Clinton and you have to choose. Frankly, this is no choice at all. He’s incompetent. She’s just bad news and we are kind of used to that.