My greatest concern about Clinton winning the election is not her ideology (although still a concern) but the inexorable continued partisan orbit that we would be forced to endure for 4-8 more years. At this point, I believe that any candidate who could reduce hostility might be welcome after nearly twenty years of the armed camp take no prisoner mentality. It may be an indulgence of fantasy to suggest that anyone could alter the current course, but Hillary's election could only fuel an already raging fire.Clinton does have some record of working reasonably well with Republicans in the Senate, but it is difficult to image that being the case as President.
But, as mentioned in the last sentence above, can anyone actually alter the course? Obama talks of bi-partisan/post-partisan-ship, but by reputation is even more liberal than Clinton. On the Republic side, who knows? Romney seems to be developing some trust issues; McCain can plays both sides, but only has one side on board for things; and Rudy gives a Bush-like king-type impression.
Would you be comfortable voting for someone who you had reservations about issues-wise if you believed they offered some chance of improving the nature of political discourse?
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Actually, I am far more likely to vote on the basis of political atmosphere than any specific issue. Two reasons:
First, it is unlikely in the extreme that I will agree with any candidate on all major elements of their platform. Since such conflict is essentially inevitable, it makes sense to me to tolerate some policy differences in exchange for some hope of improving the political culture overall.
Second, while presidential candidates espouse many positions, presidents do not enact any laws. So it makes much more sense to me to elect a president who can preside over a collegial & productive Congress than an ideologue who, even if I agree with him/her, can't translate ideas into policies.
In fact, I think the prominence of issue voters is one of the big problems in electoral politics. If there is one thing you thing is The Issue - Iraq, health care, abortion, immigration, whatever - of course you will be willing to elect someone who agrees with you on that issue even if they have a huge downside on other issues. And the need to pander to an endless string of such voting blocs is a huge hurdle to the frank discussion of difficult issues, and thus a nearly insurmountable roadblock to any actual progress on resolving them.
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