When my carefully chosen candidate John Edwards exited the campaign before Super Tuesday - despite initially promising to hang on and hang in until after the gargantuan political event (designed to cure E.D. for all the talking heads at CNN and FOX) - I promised to go through some long nights and then let the two or three of you who care what I think in on ... well ... what I think.

Following my midnight at the oasis, I have reached a decision on who of the two remaining candidates - Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama - the Gordonville Post is endorsing as the Democratic nominee.

It wasn't an easy decision, particularly because I'm aware of the consequences, and I could've played it safe and waited.

But I felt I owed it to the two or three of you before Super Tuesday.

But first, before I'm skewered alive, some history.

The year was 1988 and the G2 you endure these days was taking form.

On the student-run newspaper at Temple University's Ambler campus, I make a mercurial ascension from sports writer to sports editor. I wrote my share of album and concert reviews to build up my clip file, but was made Op-Ed Editor for my final semester.

And I had my own weekly column that contained much of the same vibes of my current Sunday offering in The Times Herald. I dubbed the column "For What It's Worth" after the Buffalo Springfield song from the 1960s that some want us to forgive, forget and regret.

I usually leaned so far to the left - touting the virtues of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and writing about my newfound friendship with 1960s activist Abbie Hoffman (who I dragged to campus for a well-attended speech) - that the FBI and CIA probably built files on me.

You think I'm bad now, you should have read what I wrote then.

But there was one instance when I broke form. Jesse Jackson was running for president and, to be blunt, I couldn't stand the guy. I was still fuming over the whole "Hymie/Hymie Town" controversy and, I'm proud to say, was among the first to see through all his rhyming with no reasoning.

I've recently excavated my basement for the original column to no avail, so I'll have to paraphrase. My premise was that a black man as president, given all that has happened, would be a beautiful thing. But Jesse Jackson was the wrong man at the wrong time.

That was 20 years ago.

Barack Obama isn't Jesse Jackson.

Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, working in unison, couldn't carry Sen. Obama's tie clip.

But is it the right time?

I'm not so sure.

One day, a black man or woman will be in the ring against an old white man battling for president and I'll be in his or her corner with a bucket of water and words of advice between rounds.

But not this time around.

I'm going with Hillary.

I see no other option.

John McCain and his intimations about being in Iraq for another 100 years are almost as disconcerting as Obama's broad-stroke, cause-for-applause pronouncements about ending the war and bringing the troops home.

Despite how nice it sounds on college campuses, we do need to maintain a war on terror. Sen. Clinton knew this when she voted for the Iraq invasion. The fact that it has been bungled is not her fault. It is the fault of the current joke of a president and the Republicans, like McCain, who kept rubber-stamping the failed strategies while singing refrains of "whatever will be will be" while our soldiers died.

We can't, under any circumstances, keep the likes of McCain in the White House. He's not as ridiculous at Mitt Romney or as off-the-wall as Mike Huckabee, but that merely equates to being the prettiest girl at Boys Town.

And I don't care what any pollsters are telling us during this time of fleeting Obama mania, there is no way Obama wins a national election unless Romney stages such a dramatic comeback - which would mean some major Super Tuesday upsets - that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg jumps in the race and takes away some moderate GOP vote (maybe 6-10 percent, a lot for a Jew in America, according to polls).

Even if Obama narrowly wins the popular vote over McCain, which is all current polls are showing us, there is no way he takes the Electoral College.

And the more he says "change" for a Pavlovian response from the Starbucks crowd, the more he is going to alienate many moderate Republicans and Independents - not to mention myself and other longtime Democrats - who don't exactly know what it entails beyond sounding groovy.

The current president made a lot of changes, too. And the country, sadly, may never be the same.

The Clinton Machine, for better or worse, is best equipped for the 500-lap race that will be the general election.

She is not perfect, but she is NOT the anti-Christ. Republicans just say her name and automatically recoil. I don't get it, but I don't think I want to get it. I'm tired of trying to pry my way inside their narrow minds.

My mind is open. It allows for the possibility of a black president, but it is more for a woman who has the best interests of her country at heart.