Hillary Clinton Campaigns to Millennials in Philadelphia

Hillary Clinton greets a millennial-dominated crowd at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa. on Monday afternoon, Sept. 19, 2016. Clinton has been campaigning regularly throughout Pennsylvania since receiving her party's nomination.

This isn't a normal election year. The two major party candidates who are dueling for the White House are not normal candidates.

And the choice between them is so stark that there is really no choice at all.

Republican Donald Trump is a blowhard and a bully who holds outdated views on women and ethnic, racial and religious minorities; embraces a dangerous approach to global affairs; espouses potentially destructive ideas on global trade and the economy, and possesses no identifiable governing philosophy and even less experience.

Democrat Hillary Clinton has the steady temperament, inclination to compromise and the requisite deep and nuanced understanding of domestic and foreign affairs uniquely suited to provide continuity and stability to American governance at a time of uncertainty at home and increasing danger abroad.

She, unlike Trump, embraces a positive and forward-thinking vision for a nation that works together to address its shared challenges and celebrates its mutual triumphs.

Trump's dystopian view of a crumbling nation, failing at home and shunned and defeated overseas, is the embodiment of America's worst angels, not its highest ideals.

More than anything else, the president should inspire his or her fellow countrymen, not constantly lecture them that their best days are behind them.

Trump's wildly narcissistic claims that he alone can solve America's problems are the delusional ramblings of a despot-in-waiting, not the Leader of the Free World.

Because of that, and for additional reasons we will outline below, the editorial board of PennLive/The Patriot-News endorses Hillary Clinton for president.

The case for Hillary Clinton:

Through four decades in public life, Clinton has been tried and tested as a leader and proven herself equal to the task.

As the United States senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, she helped 9/11 first responders obtain the health care they needed after they spent weeks inhaling PCBs and other toxic chemicals on the "pile" in Lower Manhattan, as WNYC-FM reported.

Clinton voted for both the Patriot Act and the American war in Iraq. The consequences of those votes will have decades-long reverberations through United States policy. Clinton, however, possesses the maturity to admit that the vote for war was a mistake.

As First Lady, Clinton unsuccessfully fought for universal health care. But her defeat there played a crucial role in the creation of the popular Children's Health Insurance program. It also laid the groundwork for the Affordable Care Act under President Barack Obama.

As Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, Clinton visited 112 countries and logged almost 1 million miles in the air, breaking the previous record held by Madeleine Albright.

As Secretary of State, Clinton provided a steadying hand to American diplomacy, serving competently and helping to repair America's reputation abroad.

The four deaths at the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 were an unalloyed tragedy. Yet despite the best efforts of her opponents to place sole blame on Clinton, she was exonerated in multiple Congressional investigations.

Clinton played an integral role in one of the foreign policy triumphs of the Obama presidency, the 2011 attack that ended with the death of Osama bin Laden. And she helped negotiate the landmark nuclear deal with Iran.

We have very serious concerns about Clinton's lack of transparency and were frustrated by her destructive decision to use a private email server while Secretary of State. FBI Director James Comey was correct when he said Clinton was "extremely careless" in her use of the server.

Her subsequent admission that she was wrong to do so provides some measure of comfort.

We are equally concerned about her involvement in the Clinton Foundation and allegations that donors to the foundation sought to be rewarded with access to the State Department.

But those concerns are far overshadowed by Clinton's demonstrable record of achievement - particularly when they are placed alongside Trump's complete lack of fitness for the office.

The Case Against Donald Trump

If Clinton's lack of transparency is a frustration, then Trump's utter opacity is an alarm bell. Breaking with decades of tradition, he has refused to release his tax returns.

Voters recently learned that Trump claimed a nearly $1 billion loss in 1995, which may have enabled him to avoid paying taxes for two decades.

While his actions were entirely within the law, they are a vivid reminder that his interests are more aligned with wealthy elites than the working-class Americans he claims he'll represent in Washington.

Moreover, Trump's tax avoidance is part of a pattern of dubious business practices that includes a long history of broken promises to vendors; a proclivity toward repeated corporate bankruptcies and the leveraging of massive debt to line his own pockets at the expense of others.

His failures in Atlantic City and elsewhere are well-documented.

Moreover, Trump's fiscal plan would blow up the national debt by as much as $5 trillion, according to several independent analyses, and lead to tax hikes for some middle-class taxpayers even as it hands benefits to the wealthiest Americans. That's the last thing the economy needs right now.

With a record that patchy and a plan that irresponsible, there is no reason to expect that Trump will be even marginally competent at managing one of the biggest economies in the world.

Where Clinton responds calmly to threats and criticism, the disturbingly thin-skinned Trump responds with bile and vitriol.

He has praised Russian strongman Vladimir Putin on the one hand, even as he has insulted the parents of a Muslim-American soldier killed in Iraq.

Someone with anger management problems so profound should not have access to the nuclear codes.

Nor do we have any confidence that Trump could peacefully and intelligently defuse so many of the challenges to American prestige and authority that confront any sitting president.

Where Clinton has fought on behalf of children and women's rights, famously noting in 1995 that "women's rights are human rights," Trump seems to go out of his way to regularly insult 51 percent of the population.

In the wake of the first presidential debate, for instance, he defended and doubled-down on charges that he shamed a former Miss Universe winner, Alicia Machado, about her weight.

Where Clinton has advanced a campaign of inclusiveness, Trump has sought to divide Americans along racial, ethnic and religious lines.

His claim that he'll build a wall and make Mexico pay for it is more than rhetorical, it's also a metaphor for how he can be expected to govern.

His is a vision that seeks to restore outdated notions of white privilege instead of celebrating the multi-hued mosaic that is 21st Century America.

Any one item from this bill of particulars would be disqualifying. But taken together they are a complete indictment of Trump, his policies and the philosophy he espouses.

With that in mind, there is only one logical and acceptable alternative - Hillary Clinton.

Speaking to the undecided:

But our intent here is not merely to confirm the preferences of Clinton's supporters or the suspicions of Trump's backers.

Our deeper purpose is to speak to the undecided among you and those contemplating giving their votes to the two independent party candidates who are also in the race.

Let us be clear: The stakes of the 2016 election are so high that a vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Party candidate Jill Stein, would be a squandered vote that, at its worst, could hand the presidency to Trump.

And that is an unacceptable outcome in a campaign as consequential as this one.

And lest readers think this is the run-of-the-mill endorsement from the "liberal, mainstream media," we will point out that our members include two self-identified Republicans, both of whom voted with the majority to endorse Clinton; and both of whom have deep reservations about the Republican nominee.

This board, and its predecessors, has also endorsed its share of Republicans, including George W. Bush in 2000, Attorney General candidate David Freed in 2012, and U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-4th District, in 2014, among others.

Our endorsement here, then, is based on an examination of the challenges facing the nation and the candidate best-suited to address them.

That candidate, hands down, is Hillary Clinton.