I want to vote for Hillary.  I swear I do.  While the alternative simply sucks, I want to be a part of the generation of people that flips the lever towards the direction of our first woman president.

Yes, I am a republican.  I have voted republican in every single presidential election in my lifetime (except the first time I got to vote–I threw my vote away on Ross Perot).  I have always tended to flip the lever (or fill in the circle) for the candidate with the (in my opinion) more sound fiscal policy.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become far more moderate in my personal politics, but for the most part I’ve still managed to vote conservatively.

This time, I really want to cross party lines.  I really want to vote liberal.  There are a litany of reasons that I want to vote for Hillary, but there are several things keeping me from doing so.

This is a legitimate plea to my liberal friends (and liberals I don’t know yet):  please help me get over these obstacles so I can vote for Hillary:

1. Benghazi:. I don’t know the whole story, and I won’t pretend that anyone actually does.  Here’s what I do know:  Clinton lied about a youtube.com video being the cause for the attack.  Clinton sat in meetings for a couple of hours while the fight was happening wasting valuable time while our troops on the ground were being killed.  These are two huge strikes for me.  Huge.  Help me get over this–someone–please. (Source:  factcheck.org)
2. Stolen Items:  I don’t know any other way to ask for help on this one.  The number varies from source to source, but the Clintons took somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 in gifts and items when they left the White House. That’s just thievery. What am I missing on this one?  Returning it/making amends. . .I get it.  The fact of the matter is that it happened.  The fact of the matter is that the woman running to be my president took things that didn’t belong to her.  Help me get over this one too.
3. The Obama’s trashed her:  I don’t care to call this one, “politics.”  Maybe this is part of the problem with our election process, but when Obama first ran against Hillary he made it very clear she wasn’t trustworthy, going as far as saying, “She’ll say whatever it takes to get elected.”  I remember that.  I remember that clearly.  Why has that perception changed?  What has happened in the last 8 years that makes her completely trustworthy…all of a sudden?  Trump being a hot dumpster fire doesn’t make Hillary trustworthy.  I’m struggling with this one too.
4. Emails/Personal Server:  I’m having perhaps the most difficulty with this one.  This is the one that I truly struggle mightily with.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m bothered by the other three, but I don’t even remotely understand this one.  I can’t buy that the Secretary of State thought that a personal e-mail server was kosher.  To take that a step further, if she was sure this was an, “ok” thing, why did everyone from the POTUS to her own daughter have code names?  Does that feel dirty to anyone but me?  If you don’t feel like you have something to hide, why go to all of the trouble of concealing who you’re talking to?  That’s not all though:  I have a dear friend who is in military intelligence.  This person has clerarance and if he even thought about doing the same thing that Hillary did, he’d be in Leavenworth. Take one look at General Petraeus–one (singular) charge of mishandling classified information (and he “mishandled” it to someone else’s with top secret clearance), and he was completely vilified.  Why the double standard?  Why are we as a country less concerned with the woman running for president than we are with someone who would have ultimately reported to her?  It’s not, “just e-mails.”  Saying that makes this less than what it is.  She’s still being actively investigated by the FBI.  Let’s say I vote for her. . .and she wins. . .am I really ultimately just voting for her VP?  I know nothing about him.  To me, this is a very big deal, and I need to get past this one before I can flip the lever in her direction.

I understand her appeal.  She’s appealing to me.  I like most of her social policies.  I agree with a lot of the things she stands for.  I’m not good with our current healthcare, but at least we have a starting point.  I’m not going to let the minor things I agree or disagree with sway me on this vote.  I loathe what Trump says, but I am struggling with what she does.  If I can get over these things–logically, I’ll sprint to the voting booth for her.  If I can’t get over these things, I legitimately don’t know what I’ll do at this point.

Anyone got any ideas?