Senator Clinton has supported many right-wing initiatives; and that’s fine…Washington could use a little more cooperation.

Hillary Clinton would not make the best president, at least in my eyes. To me, she is an opportunistic politician who happens to share MOST of my political beliefs, but panders towards the center (perhaps even towards the right), in order to garner more votes. This is a brilliant political strategy that will undoubtedly get her elected.

However, in my view, political victory is not about pandering to the masses by compromising your political ideologies in order to gain power; it’s about supporting just causes and explaining them clearly enough to get the masses to move towards you.

I understand that some of my political beliefs are a sharp left of mainstream. I believe in many progressive political causes, such as protecting civil liberties, that we can do so while keeping America secure; that we should institute a single-payer healthcare system; that the wealthy could stand to handle a little more of the tax burden; and so forth.

Sen. Clinton, on the other hand, has supported many right-wing initiatives; and that’s fine…Washington could use a little more cooperation.

But I fear Clinton’s motives. She supported the war when it was popular. Now, in the face of mounting opposition to the war, she is against it. While I don’t necessarily require that the candidate I support voted against this war (it’s a big plus if they did, but not necessarily a requisite), Hillary has had little remorse over her vote to authorize force for George W. Bush.

John Edwards has publicly stated that his vote to do so was a bad decision; Barack Obama wasn’t a part of the Senate, but touts his opposition to the war from the start.

It would be forgivable if this were the only instance.

But Hillary also voted for the USA PATRIOT Act, and voted to reauthorize it in 2006. This is nearly unforgivable in my view, as the act grants the government tremendous invasive powers without just cause, a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Unfortunately for yours truly, there isn’t much of a contending force against the populist politician. While Barack Obama and John Edwards both seem like great candidates to me, their polling numbers compared to Hillary’s are somewhat demoralizing. I haven’t yet decided whom to vote for in the primaries, but I know it won’t be Clinton.

Yet, I am faced with a certain debacle: Should Clinton win the Democratic Party ticket (as is very likely to happen), can I bring myself to vote for her? The answer is yes, I can. While she doesn’t represent every aspect of my liberal nature, she does do a great job of representing SOME of it.

In a perfect system of electing a president, we’d all be allowed to vote for whomever we felt was best suited for the position without consequence. Unfortunately, our system of party politics creates a duality effect that pits two candidates – deemed the most “electable” but not always the most qualified – against one another. In this system, voting for a third candidate will not help promote most of my causes as such a vote would help a candidate that I do not support at all. I’d rather feel like a partial winner than a total loser.

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