Professor Lalita Kaul, was one among thousands of staunch Hillary Clinton supporters and contributors who responded to her call to go cast their votes for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama -- -after he routed her in the Democratic primary for the nomination--which helped to power him to an overwhelming victory in the state of Maryland over Republican presidential nominee John McCain.
Kaul, professor of nutrition at Howard University's medical school here in Washington,DC, told rediff.com that she woke up early on election day at 5 am to make it to the polling booth in Montgomery County by 6 am before the polls opened at 7 am "and even then there were over 150 people in line but in less than half-an-hour I was able to vote and I was so happy to cast my ballot for Obama, soon to be President Obama, I am sure of it."
Kaul, the national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association said that although she still is somewhat despondent that Clinton did not get the nomination, said she had no qualms voting for Obama "because Hillary told us to and also I believe he has the same philosophy as her and he will move forward and we have have a change for the better and recover from some of the difficult times for our country here domestically and overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan."
"I think he has some very good ideas," she asserted, "and most importantly, he will bring about a better perception of the United States which has been so badly damaged by Bush in the past eight years in the eyes of the world."
Kaul, who served on then First Lady Hillary Clinton's Health Advisory Board during the Clinton Administration's first term,said Obama as President "will I am sure bring us back to the Clinton years, mostly because they have the same philosophy on health, education and taxes."
Kaul, who said she was bent on voting before leaving for India later in the day for two weeks, said, "Bush may have been popular in India but then India was only a handful of countries who liked him but everywhere else, he was hated him because of his go-it-alone attitude and his cowboy mentality and because of him America was hated around the world."
"I believe with Obama, we will have a welcome breath of fresh air and a chance to start over a new leaf," she said.
Kaul said she was particularly impressed with Obama's policies on health care as well as education, particularly as someone who was both an educator and a health care specialist --who's written a recent book on Obesity Among South Asians, and committed to the mantra of preventive care.
"I think his health care reforms have some very good proposals and I have read them in detail --it is inclusive of people of all income levels who can't afford insurance and also he believes strongly in preventive care."
Kaul said she hoped "he will bring in Hillary into a prominent role in health care issues in his administration because this has always been her passion. I can remember well when I worked with Hillary on her health care team during President Clinton's first term how passionate she was about it and we used to meet religiously at least once a month or more. It's unfortunate that at that time people were not ready for her health care plan and so it didn't go anywhere. But, people are ready now and they so much want it and I hope he (Obama) gives her a major role in health care reform policymaking."
"She can play such a significant role because this has always been her dream to do something on health care which is accessible to all income levels," she added.
Kaul said she was also quite enamored with Obama's education policies, particularly his $3,000 per child tax credit for low income families to send their children to college. "This is a great proposal because college education has become so prohibitive, especially in these difficult economic times. So, this will be very helpful to families who dream to send their children to college, but have seen their dream slip away in recent years."
"I am also very impressed with his proposal to have more teachers and increase the salaries of teachers so that more and more Americans are drawn to teaching which I think is the most important job in this country--teaching our children so that we can become more globally competitive and maintain our edge, which is another area where we have been losing out in recent years," she said.
