Bernie Sanders Resuscitated My Asthmatic Child, But I’m Still Voting for Hillary Clinton

   With the critical New Hampshire primary tomorrow, you can’t spend 5 minutes on the internet without stumbling into a passionate argument about whether Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders would be the most effective Democratic Presidential nominee. Like a lot of Democrats, I’m conflicted. I had a pretty personal experience with Bernie Sanders once, when my asthmatic daughter collapsed at one of his stadium-filling campaign rallies. Upon seeing Lizzie fall to the ground, Bernie immediately stopped talking, jumped down from the stage, and raced up 20 rows of seats to reach my unconscious child, where he expertly administered life-saving CPR, alternating between 30 compressions and 2 breaths to the beat of “Stayin Alive” by the Bee Gees. Nonetheless, I think Hillary’s 25 years on the national stage better qualify her to be president.

        Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly impressed by Sanders’ deep commitment to liberal principles years before they were politically expedient. As he personally drove my daughter and me to the hospital in his brown Honda CRV, he recounted the time he marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and then went on a solo cross-country journey to personally punch every racist in the American South. Upon returning from his pilgrimage, Sanders moved his whole family to the South Side of Chicago so that they might personally feel the deleterious effects of deindustrialization on urban minority communities. With his entire extended family housed in a one-room tenement apartment, Bernie and his children would give civics lessons on Sunday nights to drug dealers and at-risk youth. Sanders’ life story is almost too incredible to believe, but Hillary also worked to pass universal health care as First Lady.

        While Bernie and I sat together outside the hospital waiting room praying that Lizzie’s emergency double-transplant-pneumonectomy would take, Bernie described his concerns with the influence of money in politics. I really appreciated how Bernie funds his campaign by personally panhandling on weeknights outside the Burlington General Store. There’s nothing like being at one of his potluck rallies, where each of his 8,000 supporters brings in a potato salad, loaf of garlic bread, or a cookie cake to feed his starving campaign staff and share in the glorious bounty of Mother Earth. Watching Bernie step down from the unventilated yellow school bus in which he conducts his campaign to greet local orphans at the oncology ward brings a smile to my face every time. Still, money matters, and I can’t really blame Hillary for accepting speaking fees. It’s not like she’s denying climate change or anything.

As the day to vote gets closer, I occasionally question my support for Hillary. Sanders supporters often tell me that I just need to dream bigger about what politicians can accomplish. Barack Obama didn’t deliver on his promise to alter political polarization, but Obama didn’t have Sanders’ ability to mind-trick Republican governors into accepting the Medicaid expansion. Unlike Sanders, Obama couldn’t sprout wings and fly across the seven seas preaching his message of peace, unity, and prosperity around the globe. Maybe Sanders really is the hope and change we sought 8 years ago. But even though Hillary can’t singlehandedly raise the soul of my dearly departed daughter up to heaven like Sanders can, she was the Secretary of State. And you know what? That’s pretty cool too.

–AP ’19