On November 8^th, the nation will go to the polls to vote for the future president of the United States after what has been one of the most bitterly personal, contentious, and ridiculous campaigns in recent history. The two major party candidates, Hillary Clinton – D and Donald Trump – R, have been hit with scandal after scandal since the beginning of the campaign train, but while Trumps scandals continue to haunt him, only one has followed Clinton as doggedly: her emails and the presumption that Hillary Clinton is secretive and untrustworthy. I'm here to say, that when lined up against her current competition, Hillary Clinton should be the obvious choice for our 44^th president.

Let's just look over some facts, Donald Trump has been a clown throughout the majority of his campaign, little more than a narcissistic demagogue. At the last Presidential Debate he tried to stir up tension over abortions by saying that Roe v Wade enabled women to rip babies out of the womb on the last day of a pregnancy, which is obviously untrue. He commonly claims that we are failing in a nuclear arms race against Russia and that the solution would be more nukes, and, to make us believe he has the temperament necessary to be in charge of those nukes, he stays up until 3am to tweet about people he dislikes. He purports that over the last 30 years Hillary Clinton is solely to blame for every unpopular line of policy to ever be passed, and, that as Secretary of State, she created ISIS. He is an undeniable racist (his Trump University stint with Judge Gonzalo Curiel should speak for itself), and an undeniable misogynist. I mean, come on, how can a man who uses “She would not be my first choice,” as a defense against allegations of sexual misconduct with a woman on a plane be a champion of women and women's rights? He's attracted to his own daughter. He called his own Miss Universe contest winner “Miss Piggy” when she started to gain weight. He referred to his quips about grabbing women by their genitals as “locker room talk”, as if all men participate in and glorify sexual assault. And if all of this isn't enough, his biggest claim to fame, his financial success, is a scam. Trump has his name on more failed attempts than a high school student with a GPA of .05. Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks (you could buy 24 burgers and 16 steaks for $1,000), Trump Mortgage, GoTrump.com, the list goes on, and on... and on. He's had to file bankruptcy for his companies six times in total, four of those times in a span of two years, and yet he claims to know so much about business, so much about how to make America great again. Personally, I think if we put his name on the seat of President for even one year, we'd be kissing this country good bye.

Now, let's look at Hillary. She has struggled throughout this campaign because of the tragedy in Benghazi, the issues surrounding an FBI investigation to the Clinton Foundation, and of course, because of her notorious emails, but lets be frank here. Clinton was not solely responsible for the lives lost in Benghazi, and FBI officials have admitted that the case against the Clinton Foundation is weak and primarily based upon a single book, Clinton Cash, not hard evidence. As for her emails, I believe a little perspective should put the whole “scandal” to rest.

During the Bush administration over 22 million emails were lost, emails that prevented Congress from investigating the firing of nine U.S attorneys. According to the standards people are holding Hillary Clinton to, President George W. Bush should've been impeached and imprisoned, but this inordinate level of incompetence (or rather political scheming) was met with no punishment.

More recently, in 2007, when Mitt Romney spent taxpayer money to hide records from his term as Governor of Massachusetts, not a finger was wagged.

Colin Powell as Secretary of State used a personal computer connected to a private phone business with foreign leaders as a way to bypass the State Department servers.

And we, in 2016, treat Hillary's emails like the are a nail in her metaphoric coffin, like her private server is the end all be all of her campaign, even after the FBI closed its original investigation of her because they found nothing worth prosecuting her over. Even these emails discovered on the laptop shared by Anthony Weiner, the man whose crotch bulge ruined his political career, and his estranged wife, Huma Abedin, should make no difference. She's been as transparent as possible and has done something that Donald hasn't ever done; she's expressed remorse over her actions.

However, this election, this country's future, does not come down to facts written on paper. It comes down to who you want for President next year, who you find to be the most trustworthy, the most controlled, the most public minded. This comes down to the decision of the people, and I can only hope that everyone is willing to tale responsibility for the vote come 2017.