I am not voting for Hillary Clinton because I am super excited or giddy over her candidacy/platform [View all]

I am not, because, as I learned the hard way with Obama, that is surely an all-too-easy way to be disappointed and disillusioned. But I respect the right of my fellow Clinton supporters to disagree.

Nor am I voting for Hillary Clinton because I agree with her on stances on every issue; I do not, because I have many reservations, some serious, about certain policies that she has promoted and endorsed. But again, I respect the right of my fellow Clinton supporters to disagree.

Nor am I voting for Hillary Clinton because I am convinced that she can or will enact any significant part of her domestic policy agenda; I am not, because in all likelihood she will face an equally (if not more) viciously hostile Republican-controlled House that will certainly block almost if not all of what she proposes. And yet again, I respect the right of my fellow Clinton supporters to disagree.

I am voting for Hillary Clinton because I believe that she is undeniably one of the (if not the) most qualified, competent, and experienced individuals that has run for the Presidency in recent historical memory, in either party.

I am voting for Hillary Clinton because she is our only chance of electing a President who will defend the real, tangible, if admittedly imperfect and frustratingly agonizing progress that President Obama - and his administration and supporters, both in Congress as well as outside of it - have made on damn near every front, on damn near every metric that liberals care (or should care, at the very least) about.

I am voting for Hillary Clinton because I do not want a repeat of those deeply depressing and unfortunate four years from 2003 to 2007, which was when the Republican Party had the entire trifecta - the Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. Nominating liberal justices to the Supreme Court is of urgent and critical importance. So is taking back the Senate; unfortunately, the House is a lost cause, at least for the time being.

And, last but certainly not least, I am voting for Hillary Clinton because the United States needs to join the 21st century and the rest of the world's liberal democracies (and even countries that don't fit that classification) and elect a goddamn woman as our Head of State/Head of Government. A Hillary Clinton Presidency would not only prove to both our country and all countries around the world that a woman is every bit as capable of making the enormous number of extraordinary complex decisions and judgment calls that being the President of the United States entails, and would not only prove that a woman can be every bit as forceful, authoritative, and most importantly, demonstrate courageous leadership and unshakable resolve in both war and peace, as both the Commander-in Chief and in every other role that the President is tasked with; a Hillary Clinton Presidency would prove to both women and men, boys and girls around the globe that yes, a woman - a person with breasts and a vagina - can be the leader of the single most powerful country in the world and thus, the single most powerful person in the world, and - might I add - do a damn good job of it.

Be the change you want to be in the world. Look to your leaders for inspiration, but never mistake your inspiration for your salvation. Regardless of what your particular religious or spiritual beliefs are (if you have any, of course), I think we can all at least agree that no human being - not even the President of the United States of America, the Leader of the Free World him or herself - can ever hope to come even close to solving the problems of the world in which we live. The leaders may be the ones leading the charge, but, in the powerful democracy that we call our country, it is the People - all of them - who are the true leaders and initiators of change.