OPINION:
Hillary Clinton is the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major political party. She’s made history — and I wish I could be more proud.
The simple fact of the matter is, I don’t like Mrs. Clinton — I don’t believe in her ideologically, or trust that she can carry out our laws faithfully. I admire the fact she shattered through the ultimate political glass ceiling — but she didn’t do so alone.
She married a political savant, in former President Bill Clinton, and rode his coattails to the Oval Office. She won her seat in the New York Senate off the sympathies of the U.S. public, who were outraged her husband would cheat on her with a young intern. Mrs. Clinton’s accomplishments serving in the Senate were rare, but her ambition well-known.
Mrs. Clinton has said she and her husband left the White House “not only dead broke, but in debt,” but that year, the Clinton’s reported a total income of $16.2 million, according to their public disclosure report. Today, the Clinton’s net worth is as much as $52.7 million, which doesn’t even include the values of their homes in Washington and New York, which are estimated at $9.3 million.
They somehow have managed to profit off their public service, through millions of dollars paid in speeches to Wall Street, and given to The Clinton Foundation, where the Clinton’s managed to reward their friends with charitable grants, and receive millions from foreign countries.
The email leaks out of the Democratic National Committee confirm Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was always in Mrs. Clinton’s corner. With Ms. Wasserman Schultz at the helm of the DNC, she insured that Mrs. Clinton would never lose another Democratic primary — that they would rig it in her direction.
Leaked emails show Ms. Wasserman Schultz calling a top aide to Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders a “damn liar,” with “no understanding” of how the party works. The DNC took advice from a Clinton lawyer on how to respond when the Sanders campaign accused the DNC and the Clinton campaign of improperly using its joint fundraising committee.
The DNC was plotting narratives in the press to undermine Mr. Sanders candidacy — whether it be his religion, or promoting the idea his supporters were violent, or that they never had a real campaign infrastructure in place.
In addition, emails show that Mrs. Clinton was using her joint fundraising agreement with the DNC to funnel money into her campaign — and not to support state parties.
“During the three-month period when the DNC was working to spin the situation, state parties kept less than one half of one percent of the $82 million raised through the arrangement — validating concerns raised by campaign finance watchdogs, state party allies and Bernie Sanders supporter,” Politico wrote of the situation.
So, essentially, she was stealing from the states to fund her own campaign.
After her email scandal, where she lied to the American public for more than 18 months about her private server, coupled with the politics she played to try to cover up the Benghazi terrorist attack, and the flip-flopping she’s done throughout her public career on policy issues, I simply can’t support Mrs. Clinton.
Mrs. Clinton has been in public service for more than a quarter century, everybody knows her, and yet more than half of Americans don’t like her, polling says. A record sixty-eight percent don’t trust her.
Mrs. Clinton has struggled to lock up support among some younger women and middle-aged white women. A little-reported cross-tab on an ABC News/Washington Post poll released this week showed Mrs. Clinton lost her 22 percentage point lead over Donald Trump among college-educated white women, and the two candidates are now evenly split.
It’s “by far the closest margin in this group in ABC/Post polling this election cycle,” the poll read.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken earlier this month reveals the same.
While Mrs. Clinton receives 52 percent support from all women polled, she only gets 36 percent support among white women ages 50 to 64 and 34 percent among white women ages 35 to 49, the survey says. Mr. Trump is supported by 37 percent of all women in the poll — but he gets 54 percent of white women ages 50 to 64 and 51 percent of those women ages 35 to 49.
Why is this significant? Because for a Republican to win, they must win over white, married, Republican moms — their vote isn’t sufficient to win the White House, but necessary. Mr. Trump is clearly making inroads with this demographic, as Mrs. Clinton continues to struggle.
Some younger women simply haven’t experienced the barriers older women have throughout their careers, and therefore don’t identify with Mrs. Clinton’s achievement. To them, they feel they can accomplish anything, and that a woman in the White House will come eventually — no one is keeping a woman from the highest office in the land.
But for me, Mrs. Clinton is an exceptionally polarizing candidate. She’s profited off the government in her public service. She’s lied repeatedly to the American public for her own political advantage. She’s a puppet to corporate America and billionaire George Soros, who have given millions to her campaign and affiliated Super PACs.
For these reasons, I refuse to vote for Mrs. Clinton. For me, gender simply isn’t enough.
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