I'm With Her

                My political awakening began in early 2005, shortly after President George W. Bush was beginning his second term in office. My family was middle class, religious (Methodist), and conservative. I grew up just assuming I was conservative, too.

                I was able to vote for the first time in 2004, and I took this duty seriously. I began researching all the candidates that would be on the ballot. The candidates for the Alabama Supreme Court were particularly eye opening to me. Many of the Republican candidates held some dangerous views in my opinion that bordered on or were flat out racist. It caused me to do a lot of soul searching about my assumed political beliefs, and on Election Day I ended up voting for many more Democrats than Republicans. (This would be the first and last election that I voted for any Republican candidates).

                Throughout 2005, I did my best to become more informed. This also is the year I began coming out as gay to my close friends. It didn’t take me long to realize my values were more progressive and aligned much more with the Democratic Party. Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin became political heroes to me.

                Locally, despite being in a deeply conservative state, there were things to be excited about. The first campaign I was heavily involved with was Lucy Baxley’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign here in Alabama. I had the honor of meeting her in 2002 when I represented my high school at Boys State and had been incredibly impressed with her and all she had accomplished in office. I had never wanted someone to win an election as badly as I wanted Lucy Baxley to become governor of Alabama.

                Despite Baxley’s loss, I still have many fond memories of the 2006 campaign, including making a weekly driving from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery every Friday to work in the campaign headquarters that fall. There were many other great local candidates that year including former Governor Jim Folsom, who was elected lieutenant governor, and Judge Sue Bell Cobb, who was elected the first female Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

                As the 2006 cycle ended, the presidential race heated up. I was excited about the prospect of Feingold running for president, but he quickly took his name out of consideration. I really didn’t know who I would support in my first presidential primary.

                Around this time I read Hillary Rodham Clinton’s autobiography, Living History. I learned a lot about her that I didn’t know before. She had a political awakening similar to mine. She grew up in a Republican household, but her Methodist upbringing and the civil rights movement of the 1960s led her to get involved with the Democratic Party in 1968 by the time she was of voting age.

                When Clinton announced her candidacy for president on Saturday, January 20, 2007, I was ecstatic. There had never been a formidable female presidential candidate, and she was entering the race as the frontrunner. I looked at the other candidates in the race and their plans and policies, and it was clear she was a once in a lifetime type candidate. I worked my heart out for her over the next year and a half.

                In June 2008, once the primary contests were over, the race was incredibly tight. Clinton had a slight lead in the popular vote, but then Senator Barack Obama had a slight lead in the delegate race. Delegates are what matter in the process, and so Obama became the presumptive nominee. Clinton’s reaction to her loss showed me the kind of leader she is.

                She could’ve made the case that no candidate had the amount of pledged delegates necessary to win the nomination (for either Clinton or Obama to have enough delegates, they needed Democratic Party superdelegates to side with them) and she could’ve argued her lead in the popular vote should make her the nominee. She could’ve acted in her own personal interests and gone on to a contested convention fight.

                Instead, she immediately began working to unify the Democratic Party and endorsed Obama. She worked tirelessly over the summer and at the convention in Denver to make sure her supporters knew Obama was the best choice for the country. She did what was best for the country and the party, accepting defeat graciously, and continued working hard to make progressive changes in America.

                I stayed involved in politics, volunteering with Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012, and local races in 2010 and 2014.

                In January 2013, a grassroots organization called Ready for Hillary was formed with the purpose of drafting Clinton into the 2016 presidential race and building up a supporter network for her should she run. The 2012 presidential race was just finished, Clinton was winding down four exhausting years as secretary of state, and we still had a midterm election to get through. It seemed early to care about the next presidential race. Primary elections were still three years away.

                The group rapidly grew exponentially. It had 50,000 Twitter followers almost instantly. Over the next two years the group amassed four million members. It became clear that there were millions of grassroots organizers throughout the country that wanted Clinton to run for president again.

                I began looking ahead and thinking about the presidential race. Who would I want to run for president? There were plenty of people I liked who had good track records in office. I liked then Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, then Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, and Senator Kirstin Gillibrand. As much as I liked them, none of them compared to Clinton. Her lifelong record and experience is just unmatchable. It wasn’t long before I was also Ready for Hillary.

                Once again I watched with joy as she announced her second bid for the White House, this time on Sunday, April 12, 2015. I was even more excited than I had been eight years before. Her incredible qualifications and experience had only gotten more impressive after a four year stint as secretary of state.

                I still did my homework though. After all of the Democratic candidates had announced, I looked at their records and the plans and policies they were proposing. Once again, for me, it was Clinton by a mile. My results actually surprised me though when I compared the rest of the candidates. As a fan of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, I assumed he would be my second choice. But, it was O’Malley. Sanders was a close third.

                I want to be clear that I think it’s important we keep a Democrat in the White House, and any of the Democrats running for president would be preferable to any of the Republicans running for president. But, after a closer look at Sanders’ record and proposals, I was left with concerns.

                Ideologically, I line up pretty well with both Clinton and Sanders. After all, during the time they served in Congress together their voting records were 93 percent identical. There were some votes where Clinton’s positions were considered more progressive, and some where Sanders’ positions were considered more progressive.

                A president must do more than share my ideology though. He or she must be able to lead, and must have a clear plan of action for getting things done. While I share most of the goals both Clinton and Sanders hope to achieve, Clinton’s plans are the ones that are sounder and fully fleshed out. Her plans have the backing of academics, economists, and experts who see them as achievable and often cite gaps and holes in Sanders’ plans.

                When it comes down to specifics, Clinton is the clear choice for me. Her healthcare plan builds on the progress we’ve already made under the Affordable Care Act instead of creating a new system from experts say has many flaws. She’s been fighting for universal healthcare for decades and when met with defeat she’s continued working on the issue and helped increase coverage for children and military families.

                Her college tuition plan actually addressing the rising costs of education while working with students to make it more affordable and pay down their existing student loan debt.

                Her paid family leave plan covers everyone without raising taxes on the middle class.

                Her plan to reign in Wall Street has been praised as going farther than Sanders’ plan because she addresses shadow banking and because she grasps the future of the banking industry, not just the past. She was one of the first to recognize the mortgage crisis during the financial crash and introduce legislation to provide relief to families affected by it.

                Her work on behalf of LGBT people while she was secretary of state constantly awed and inspired me, especially when standing up to brutal anti-LGBT dictators and leaders around the world.

                She consistently fights to expand voting rights, and as a senator introduced legislation making it easier to vote and making Election Day a national holiday.

                Her work on behalf of women and girls, and her grasp of the importance of education from an early age is impressive. She was not only a solid vote for reproductive freedom in the Senate, but she was a leader on the issue, introducing bills to expand coverage throughout her congressional career.

                Her depth of knowledge and ease talking about foreign policy is completely unrivaled. And, there are so many more issues that she’s great on—the environment, immigration, criminal justice reform, and addressing systemic racism in this country.

                And, yes, she is a woman. She would be the first female president of the United States and to me that is huge. It would of course be different if it were a woman whose policies I didn’t think would make the country better, but Clinton has a lifelong progressive track record of getting things done.

                The level of sexism she faces as a woman in power and a presidential candidate is proof enough that having a female president is important. She is consistently held to a much higher standard than anyone else on every issue—her Iraq vote in 2002 (which she apologized for and has explained numerous times—look up her floor speech if you’re not familiar with it), her speaking fees, her campaign contributions, her emails (despite previous secretaries of state doing the same thing), etc.

                I specifically remember one of the first debates in this cycle in which she and Sanders were both asked about Edward Snowden and marijuana use. They both have differently worded, but incredibly similar answers. The next day, the media and many progressives praised his answers while condemning hers. I had to go back and rewatch the clips from the debate to make sure I hadn’t misheard either candidate.

                Also, when I look around, the smartest people I know and the people who are working everyday for progressive changes in America support her. Organizations like the Human Rights Campaign, the League of Conservation Voters, and Planned Parenthood all have endorsed Clinton. She also has the backing of the vast majority of unions.

               

There is no such thing as a perfect candidate, because there is no such thing as a perfect human. We’ve all made mistakes and all have flaws. There is no one I agree with 100 percent of the time. But, that’s okay. There’s no reason to look for perfection, especially when it doesn’t exist.

                I like her willingness to acknowledge when she’s made a mistake and willingness to adapt. Isn’t that what being a progressive is about? We learn from our experiences, and we correct the course if we need to.

                Clinton has been the subject of vicious attacks from conservatives for over 20 years now, and she’s still standing. She’s still managed to be named the Gallup’s Most Admired Woman a record 20 times, and she’s got better favorability ratings than her Democratic rivals according to the latest polls. She has been investigated over and over again, and each time nothing comes up.

Karl Rove’s group and Super PAC have been out to defeat her since she announced in April 2015, even going so far as running positive ads for her primary opponents and negative ads against her. (Unfortunately, many on the left have fallen for these dishonest attacks.)

I still believe Hillary Rodham Clinton is a once in a lifetime candidate with a stellar track record, and I am so proud to once again get to vote for her on March 1. I'm confident that as president, she'll make this country better for all of us.