As the campaign for the Presidency of the United States winds down, and when the next issue of SFGN is published one day later than usual, we will know whether or not our nation has elected its first female president.

Our paper will be published on Thursday, not Wednesday, next week, so that we can more comprehensively cover local and national elections, along with critical statewide amendments, such as the petition to allow medical marijuana dispensaries in the State of Florida. Polling at a 71 percent favorability rating, we suspect that this amendment will prevail this time around.

We don’t know for sure that Hillary Rodham Clinton will win this election, and if you support her, and have not voted, please do so. One thing you learn in Florida is not to take votes for granted. In the year 2000, when SFGN’s predecessor, the Express Gay News, debuted, South Florida voters became the focus of the nation’s attention. The Presidency was decided by 537 votes. There were more than that many gay voters unable to get into the Manor this past weekend to see Secretary Clinton.

It was no easy task to pull off this event on 24 hours notice, and we should applaud and thank the management for doing so. It was equally frustrating for the many who could not get in, expecting instead to attend an outdoor event open to all the public. But please be tolerant of the circumstances. First, the weather was foreboding, and the opportunity to host a future president in a local LGBT venue was unique. The presenters, the HotSpots Media Group, and the local Democratic Party, properly seized the moment.

Consequently, last Sunday was a historic day for Wilton Manors. It was not just that Secretary Clinton spoke at a gay club. It was recognition that our community, the LGBT community, is a powerful force in the national political debate. Let’s face it; there are things we need to protect, starting with the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality. 

The Republican nominee, Donald Trump, is more than a flawed candidate. He is flatly an evil, angry person, interested more in advancing his name than our country. He is a demagogue of the worst kind. It is not just that he is personally toxic and poisoned the debate with ridicule and name-calling. His candidacy, like his persona, is mean and mendacious, boisterous and belligerent. He has brought nastiness to a new level.

Accordingly, we stand by our endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton for the presidency. If you have not voted yet, please do so. You know, outside the speech at the Manor a protestor wore a mask and a shirt suggesting Hillary was ‘crooked,’ ignorantly suggesting that the ‘emails prove it.’

No, the emails prove that a good and decent servant may have inappropriately treated secure government information improperly. But after numerous inquiries and investigations, the FBI concluded that the Secretary never had criminal intent and could and should not be prosecuted. 

However, since the emails have again become a tangential issue, SFGN will wrap up its editorial coverage of this election by pointing out what the emails will never include.

In those emails, we will never see Secretary Clinton bragging and boasting how she can step into teenage Miss America pageants and see high school girls naked.

We will never see Secretary Clinton bragging about grabbing the genitalia of men anytime she wants because she has title and stature and was a ‘star’, a status her opponent showcased, boasted, and confessed to- openly and on tape.

We will never read in those emails how Secretary Clinton spent years as a traitor, conspiratorially and falsely accusing the President of the United States as having been born in Kenya.

We will never read any documents suggesting that Secretary Clinton purposely and willfully discriminated against African Americans in housing, as her opponent was accused of doing 44 years ago.

We will never read an email suggesting that the generals serving our armed forces are ‘rubble’ and that our military is a ‘disaster,’ or that she presumes to know more than they do about warfare.

We will never read a document claiming she needed a draft deferment in 1968 because she had ‘bad heels.’ Ironically, the same year Trump was draft-dodging Vietnam, he was claiming to be the ‘best baseball player in the history of New York.’

We will never see Secretary Clinton disgracing the service Senator John McCain offered to the U.S., first as a soldier, then as a prisoner of war. We won’t hear Secretary Clinton mocking his capture.

We won’t hear Secretary Clinton mocking the mother of a soldier who lost her son in the Iraqi conflict, or denying that she voted for and supported that war when she thought it was the right thing to do. Her opponent, however, the liar that he is, goes on the air and admits support for the conflict. Then he denies the very words he published at a national debate. Pants on fire, Donald.

We won’t ever see in those emails a call by Secretary Clinton to build a border wall because all Mexicans are rapists and criminals, and some murderers.

We won’t ever see in those emails words from Secretary Clinton suggesting that all Muslims should be banned from the U.S.

We won’t ever see from Clinton an email suggesting gays should be denied the right to marry, or that Roe vs. Wade should be overturned. Trump, divorced three times, wants to deny you the right to be married once.

We won’t ever see a memo from Clinton that the late Justice Antonin Scalia is exactly the kind of jurist she wants to make the next Supreme Court nominee. Nor will she demean his dignity or disgrace his title by disparaging him personally. Rather, she will salute his stature and service, as a presidential candidate should.

We won’t ever see an email where Secretary Clinton reduces her campaign to childish name-calling, referring to her adversaries as ‘Low Energy Jeb,’ ‘Little Marco’ or ‘Lying Ted.’

We won’t ever see an email where the Secretary mocks reporters with disabilities, or scoffs at those who are physically challenged.

We won’t see emails, either, will we, referring to women as ‘flat chested’, ‘pigs’ or ‘bimbos’ because they don’t measure up to some number or rating, the kind her opponent brags that he gives every female.

We won’t see emails from a former Miss Universe degraded and demeaned for gaining weight.

We won’t see any emails where Secretary Clinton brags about beating people up that disagree with her, or promising to kick the s**t out of them.

We won’t see any emails where Secretary Clinton brags about how she refused to release her tax returns or ‘gamed’ the system by not paying her fair share of taxes.

We won’t see the Secretary after a debate say the questions were too one-sided, the microphone not working, the moderators too biased. Clinton, like she did in a 12-hour congressional hearing earlier this year, rises to challenges, unlike her opponent who has an excuse for every failing.

We won’t see any emails from the former Senator from New York declaring that she will not accept the results of this election, and that our entire system is ‘rigged,’ ‘corrupt’ or that the ‘fix is in against her.’

We won’t read in any of Secretary Clinton’s emails that the media is ‘crooked’, ‘dishonest,’ and not giving her enough attention, whining like a crybaby that she is not getting adequate coverage.

This list could probably go on, but the message is the same. When Tuesday comes, America will be served best if we elect Hillary Rodham Clinton the next President of the United States.