Bernie partisans will tell you that he's passionate and committed. Hillary's fans (I am one) will tell you that she's brilliant, experienced and has well thought out policies. Contrary to what the Bernie partisans will say, their values, the overarching goals they will support, are almost identical.
I started the primary season as a long time fan of Bernie but convinced that Hillary had a huge advantage, in addition to the above, of having spent the last ten years building a political organization and otherwise preparing for the Presidency.
Then I witnessed the Bernie phenomenon. It turns out that passion is another word for emotion. Commitment is another word for intolerance. His strategy from the start has been to denigrate Hillary as a corrupt tool of the right wing corporations, to imbue his followers with a clear understanding of who the enemies are and to encourage them to be angry.
I have a lot of arguments with Bernie partisans on Facebook. I have had them tell me that Hillary, a person I have followed fairly closely for over twenty years, is no better than Dick Cheney. That she is a war criminal. That she disgusts them. This is what Bernie's leadership inspires. Irrational hatred for one of the most intelligent and reliable liberals I have ever seen. I think Bernie is a bad influence on America.
By contrast, Hillary is clearly all about being thoughtful and rational. She gets dinged for it all the time but her response is always a plan, well thought out, broken down into workable steps. That is, her main message is that we have problems and the way to solve them is to do things. People complain that she is unemotional because she doesn't think about who is at fault or who is bad or who she doesn't like. She thinks about what can be done to improve the situation.
I am often frustrated because I actually see real emotion in her. When she is explaining what she wants to do, I see a powerful version of the earnest girl with the thick glasses looking at a long-haired Bill. I imagine her screwing up her courage to investigate that racist school when she was twenty. It breaks my heart that people can't perceive her value.
But most of all, I think that she is brilliantly well qualified. Hillary already knows the personalities of the leaders of the world. She already knows how security works in the White House. How to operate the situation room. How to organize a policy organization. She has run the State Department, one of the largest and most important governmental organizations on Earth.
The question, though, comes down to emotion vs rationality. We are in an era where people are angry and disatisfied. The question is how to respond. There are a lot of Bernie people who think the way to do so is to encourage passion, ie, anger at the status quo, to break up things, to revolt, to condemn the enemies. In my opinion, these are people who think that emotion is the most productive way to make things better.
I am not one of them. I believe in thinking and planning. I believe in negotiating and cooperating. I think that negativity and enemies are a counterproductive distraction. I do not really think that emotion is a useful component of governance.
One other thing. The 'woman' thing.
I do not think anyone should vote for a woman because she's a woman. Carly FIorina couldn't get my vote if she was the last person on Earth. But, I do believe that there are differences in the perspectives of men and women and I do believe that this is a moment when that is apparent and important.
We are in a time when the inclination to violence is everywhere. When muscle flexing and intransigence and harsh judgements are rendered enthusiastically throughout society and government. It is my opinion that this is a consequence of a testosterone laden governing class. I believe that the Republicans are exhibiting dominance behavior more than any other thing. I think that we have become a country that is focused on the wrong things.
Hillary has made clear, for her whole life, that she is focused on helping people. From her early days as a student, through her time as First Lady, to her Senate period and even as Secretary of State, human rights, poverty, economic security and a host of other human oriented issues have been the center of her career.
I think we need that now. Families are in trouble. Human rights are under siege. Women rights, especially, are threatened in America, but so are other, non-white-male rights. I think it is time for a woman to give it a try.
I think that Hillary's lifelong interest in working on problems whose solution has nothing to do with kicking ass, assembling great armies or otherwise dominating people would be really helpful now. I think that her inclination to work across the aisle, her female inclination to collaborate and socialize, would be a breath of fresh air. I think the men have held power too long. We need to break up the pattern.
I have always like Bernie. But watching him in the debates has revealed a classic male dominance person. Seeing him shout, gesticulating in large aggressive movements, hearing him talk over Hillary again and again, watching him dancing and waving and upstaging her, all make me think that he is, contrary to his assertion, more of the same.
Boehner talks about "taking back" the country. Trump talking about "kicking people out". I just don't think we need another person to get into government with the same mindset and strategy.
If Hillary gets elected, I believe (and now I have studied on this some) that she will be the most qualified person ever to sit in the Oval Office. She has extraordinary amounts of applicable experience. She is clearly the most intelligent person in public life today. Her plans are thorough, well thought out and intended to achieve goals that any liberal should love.
Hillary is the right person for the job. I encourage you to vote for her.