I once heard a young boy say he couldn't be president because that's what white people do.
I began this primary season thinking it was really important we elect a person of color so that young children can look up and dream that they, too can be president.
Obama was my candidate. But then.
But then I learned he pressed the wrong button 6 times in the Illinois legislature. I learned at the Harvard Law Review he took few stands, and tried to be all things to all sides. He was the first Harvard Law Review Editor to not publish a single paper, so the next year the Review established a rule requiring each Editor do so. I learned he hadn't done his homework on a lot of issues, in fact on most of them. I listened to why he didn't want health insurance mandates in his health care plan and his answer was they are a good idea, but it was too hard to get them passed in Congress. (No, we can't?) I learned the nuclear industry lobbyists were able to visit his office and water down his bill to the point that Obama a DEMOCRAT said oversight reporting should be VOLUNTARY. I heard him say Social Security is "in crisis" which set off alarm bells.
And I read about people who'd worked with or known Hillary for years and years and vouched for her character. I learned people who knew both Clintons actually liked her better than Bill. I saw she was so so solid in every debate performance, in every townhall she answered questions off-the-cuff and she was simply dazzling. I learned New Yorkers who were initially skeptical were now absolutely crazy about her, she had delivered for them so well.
Then I learned about her mother, Dorothy Rodham. Dorothy was given away at age 8, and rode a train from Chicago to Los Angeles with her 3-year-old sister, because Dorothy's parents could not afford to care for them during the Great Depression. But that's not all. Dorothy had to work as a live-in maid at age 14 while she attended high school because her aunt in Los Angeles needed the money. Dorothy studied hard and was admitted to Dartmouth, but without any money, college was not an option. So she returned to Chicago hoping to reunite with her mother, but found that her mother just wasn't that interested. Knowing this made Hillary compassionate toward Bill's upbringing and toward all children who do not have the means to live to their full potential.
Dorothy's story convinced me that Hillary's achievements were not racked up simply to add bullet points to a resume. Hillary did these things because she cares and she likes to fight for these causes.
I could go on, as I then read Living History - where I learned that what Obama did as a "community organizer" Hillary also did before she even completed college. There was so much more to her.
And I saw her in that little white dress and mary jane shoes in that 1950 photo and realized that girls, too, do not think they can be president because "that's what boys do." In fact nobody even asks little girls if they want to be president someday. And a woman like Hillary would not come along again in my lifetime.
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