Why I plan to vote for Hillary, even though I love Bernie

I love the video of Bernie and the Bird from a couple of days ago. It is cute, it is clean (nice break from the sleaze on the Republican side of the campaign), and Bernie's expressions indicate the kind of mensch I suspect he is. His statement when the bird flew away is nice ("That bird is really a dove asking us for world peace. No more wars!").  

But I still plan to vote for Hillary in the April 26 Maryland primary. Here is why.

On Thursday night, MSNBC did for Bernie what it has been doing for Trump for months:  Turning over a large bloc of time to broadcast a full campaign speech live, this one before 15,000 people in Safeco Field in Seattle.  

Bernie's speech covered nearly the full range of domestic issues. I agreed with him on most, but found some of his proposals very impractical (e.g., Medicare for All as the way to expand and improve health care), and some of his understanding overly simplistic (e.g., the problems with trade deals). Given that the groundwork for his "political revolution" would have to include turning both the Senate and the House into bastions of progressive ideology, and the fact that we are no where near laying that groundwork to achieve that in the 2016 election cycle, Bernie's election would most certainly result in a huge letdown, one that would dwarf the let-down in 2009-10 which resulted in people giving up on voting, resulting in the right-wing Republican takeover of the House and later the Senate (and the governments of most of the states).

So while I like Bernie, I am still planning on voting for Hillary. She is closer to my views on some key issues, and I think she has a better grasp on how to actually be President. I know she is not perfect, but I think our future is better served by electing Hillary in 2016.

What I am mostly concerned about is assuring that the Democratic nominee win in November. Given the Republican alternatives of Trump and Cruz, nothing could be more important. And with national security sure to be uppermost in the minds of the voters this November, we have to be very careful about who we nominate.

This is where the Bernie and the Bird video crystalized my concern about going with Bernie. His Thursday speech did not address the issue which very likely will be uppermost in many voters' minds come November: National security in an era of ISIS terrorism. While Bernie's instincts about not getting bogged down in foreign military adventures are correct, we are not in the same time as we were in 2002. Bernie was right and Hillary was wrong on the decision to give Bush authorization to invade Iraq. Now we are dealing with the consequences of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld adventure. As NBC reporter Richard Engel's book title informs us, And Then All Hell Broke Loose, the shattering of the status quo in the Middle East has unleashed forces of evil and insanity that threaten all of us. The next President must have the knowledge, experience, and temperament to figure out how to respond: Not too much (which would be counterproductive), not too little (since we are a target). I have absolutely no confidence that Trump or Cruz would be able to handle this in any sane, effective way. Hillary seems to be the best choice on dealing with this serious problem -- and she is best equipped to convey that to the electorate in November. Bernie has not shown me, at least, that he has sufficient interest and experience to be anywhere near as effective as Hillary. If he can't prove that to me, I find it hard to believe that he could convey that to enough of the American electorate.

So, for me, unless Bernie can demonstrate that he meets the threshold national security test, I have no question that I will vote for Hillary in the April 26 Maryland primary.