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Politics

A Feminist for Obama

Tuesday night when she said, "What does Hillary want?" in her & "un" concession speech, I cringed in shame for her. In these dark times, unfortunately, "What Hillary wants" is not the most important value. What is important is that we get past the anger and heal that great divide that has poisoned our country for over two decades. (There were times that the political division in my own family was so great, I felt I was living during the Civil War .

Several lifelong friends are furious with me and seem to hold me personally responsible for Hillary's defeat; and it is disheartening to hear others say they will vote for John McCain rather than give a vote to Obama.

OK...I'll admit it; when I listened to Barack Obama take the stage in St. Paul to claim the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, the thrill of it made me laugh. I have grown so used to political defeat in my voting life, that I usually expect the worst. It IS painful to throw your support behind someone whole-heartedly, only to watch them lose.

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But before any disappointed Democrats stay away from the polls next November, or worse, give their vote to John McCain, I would ask them to carefully weigh the consequences of such an action. Do they really want eight more years of death in Iraq? Are they truly ready to sacrifice the right to reproductive freedom and return to the days when young women often died or were maimed in back alley abortions? Do they really want a continuation of Bush's disastrous economic and diplomatic policies, and wanton disregard for the very real crisis of global warming?

& No, the stakes in November are way too high to cast votes out of revenge, or petulance, or for some misguided nostalgia for what "might have been."

Wouldn't it be something if we join together now anduse our power as voters to restore America's center asa union of "We the People."

-Citizen Voices blogger Candace Suerstedt is a filmmaker and a mother of three who lives in Coronado.