Dear Hillary

Dear Hillary,

Please stop. For those of us who truly love and respect you, please stop while you maintain that love and respect. I began this campaign season fully supporting you and was certain you would bring a new character and example of leadership to this country and the world.

As a child of the 60’S, I lived through the presidencies of Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and now Bush II. Your husband’s presidency is by far the best I’ve experienced in my lifetime. Sad to say, but that has been against some very low standards. Still, despite his personal weakness, he was a remarkable leader for the nation.

Entering the election cycle, I viewed you as the steel, the strength, that made his presidency as potent as it was. And so it was without giving any of the other candidates consideration that I embarked on my “elect Hillary” mission. You possessed the precious metal to regain the honor of the office. Sadly, as the campaigning progressed another side of you emerged. Through all of Bill’s dalliances, you remained stronger than Tammy Winette could have ever sung, yet when all the states did not roll over and succumb to your feminine ways, the vindictive Clinton showed her face.

There were thousands of jokes about how Bill must have felt crawling into bed next to you as his indiscretions were counted. Suddenly, we, the voters, became Bill. We were treated to your wrath, indignation, and genuinely mean spirit. As Obama’s message of hope became something we more and more craved, your anger distanced us more and more.

This weekend, as you asked for the rules to be changed at the end of the game, that hostility to the real common man became clear. As an educator, every day I work within “No Child Left Behind” which daily disenfranchises more students than it empowers because it unjustly judges. Still, we play by the rules, take the embarrassment when it comes in the media, and go back the next day to educate children. In my school 80% of the students enter 9th grade reading at the third to fifth grade level. We are considered low-performing because we have a four year graduation rate of 67%. In three year’s time, we move 47% of the students from elementary level to high-school graduation level.

The rules are not fair, but we play by them.

With Michigan and Florida, you knew the rules. The state parties knew the rules. The voters knew the rules, and yet they continued to break them. How then do you expect me to support you in such a dishonest and obviously manipulative grab made only out of desperation? Every day you draw this out. Every attack on the party and on Obama you make, makes me respect you less.

Your recent behavior and that of your most fervent followers, has made be see you as nothing more than the current regime in sheep’s clothing. You are not the woman, the senator, the person I thought you were. I’m hurt and broadly disillusioned. Senator Obama was not my candidate of choice, but after observing you in the last few months, he has become my only hope.

If you really love this country, you will gracefully accept defeat and give us a chance to move forward into a brighter future for all than the Republicans would ever allow even for a few.

Thank you.