By Jason Mariasis

Right now we are living in a critical period in history where our next president will greatly influence the future direction of the world. While I respect both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton is the best candidate to lead us into that future.
One of Clinton’s greatest strengths is that she is a leader with exstensive experience. I’m sure you’ve been hearing a great deal about Clinton and her experience, maybe even more than you care to hear, but the fact is ‘experience’ is a key factor in this presidential race.
When the president is faced with difficult decisions that need to be made in a very limited amount of time, I have confidence that Clinton can sit down, analyze the issue, and make the best possible decision based on her previous experiences and her intelligence.
I don’t want a president making a hasty decision or doing something that didn’t work in the past. Clinton has thirty-five years of experience in public service including her current position as Senator of New York – one of the most complex states in the country.
In addition, Clinton has eight years of first hand experience in the White House learning how Presidential politics work. Obama may be significantly challenged by difficult issues since he doesn’t have the experience to know what works in certain situations and what doesn’t.
In addition, when issues are brought up to Clinton regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, or even China, for example, I feel comfortable knowing she can make an informed and educated decision about what to do since she has traveled to these places and has actually seen everything that is happening first hand. Unfortunately, Barack Obama does not have this same highly valuable level of experience.
Obama and Clinton both hold democratic ideals, but some of her ideas are different. Both she and Obama want to leave Iraq since they believe that the war can’t be won and our economy is suffering tremendously from its expense. But Clinton does not want to lay out a timeline of leaving Iraq, while Obama does.
Obama is idealistic and says that he will make sure all U.S. troops are home within eighteen months. Clinton is more realistic by saying that even though she would like to set the same timeline, she cannot commit to doing that since it may not be possible. It would be better to have a timeline so that the Iraqis know the U.S. is serious about leaving, but that timeline may not be feasible, and Hillary recognizes this. We definitely don’t want to make an uneducated, rushed decision about when to leave Iraq similar to the Bush administration’s decision to go into Iraq.
Additionally, while Clinton and Obama have similar views about health care, there are some important distinctions. Clinton believes in universal health care. Obama does not want to mandate health care but instead wants to make sure health coverage is affordable.
With Obama’s stance, people who want health care would most likely purchase it, while others may not want to spend the extra money – especially during these challenging economic times. This would place the families without health insurance at large risk. Obama will mandate health care for ‘children’ but that still doesn’t solve the issue when an adult becomes sick and needs to spend their entire income on medical bills.
With Clinton’s program, citizens will be required to purchase affordable health care, which many believe is a right. As a result, families will not be put in jeopardy of losing their money because of an unforeseen medical expense. Some believe that people should be able to choose whether or not to purchase health care, but this fails to address the issue of protecting the children in the family. Only Clinton’s plan will ensure that children are protected.
Clinton and Obama are very similar, but Clinton not only has the better resume, she also recognizes the changes required to improve our country and how best to implement them. Like Obama, Clinton also advocates change but has the experience to enforce it. She will work with both Republicans and Democrats to come up with new ideas to create a better, safer place for everyone in the U.S. and in the world. In today’s world, we can no longer take risks when electing our president.
We need a leader with experience, intelligence, and an ability to speak in public. A leader must be realistic, aggressive, able to make difficult decisions, and an independent thinker.
We need a leader who is willing to have Republicans and Democrats work together and who absolutely and undoubtedly loves and cares for our country and wants to do whatever is in its best interest. And with those demanding requirements, there is only one leader for the job. We need Hillary Clinton.