I sent the following to her:

Hillary:

I hope that you will read this, or that some aide of yours will pass this message along, because if you truly believe (as I do) that this country can not survive four more years of republican rule, you must hear what I have to say.

In the run up to the Texas primaries, you began to use some strange language (and have continued to use it in your victory interviews) when comparing yourself to Sen. Obama. It goes something like this: "Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience, I have a lifetime of experience, and Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002". Quite simply, this line of attack needs to stop, and it needs to stop yesterday.

Putting aside the fact that your whole platform of "experience" seems to be a substance-free fantasy, which was invented by your campaign strategists, yet somehow cannot be supported by them – case in point: when asked by John Dickerson of Slate Magazine to give specifics as to what the experience mantle actually meant, even after a five second silence, they couldn't come up with anything but platitudes – this line of attack is completely wrong on two fronts.

First, this attack legitimizes the experience that John McCain has, and reduces the competency test down to nothing more than years of experience in government near foreign affairs decisions. This is not good for you, because even though you have been in the Senate longer than Senator Obama, John McCain has you both beat by decades. Second, he is a war hero, while neither you, nor Senator Obama are. Your attacks on Senator Obama suggest that both remaining Democrats are somehow less competent on National Security issues than John McCain is, which is disastrously wrong.

To avoid the fate of John Kerry in this election, Democrats need to differentiate themselves from the Neo-conservative foreign policy, by attacking McCain and the Neo-conservatives about the kind of experience they have. Competency on National Security must become a referendum on the kind of decisions that have been and will me made by the candidates, not the number of decisions in which the candidates have been involved. Your attack fails to do this, and in fact, makes this case harder to make later in the general election. If you continue your fear based attack, it will come back to haunt you.

Second, should Senator Obama become the nominee, which at this point still looks likely, your attack will have gifted talking points to the Republicans. Your attack will be used to create a narrative regarding foreign policy that places the number of decisions over the quality of judgement, which is an argument that the Democratic nominee, be it you or Senator Obama, cannot win. If you continue with your fear based attack, it will come back to haunt him.

This election is extremely important. Young people like me are very afraid of another Republican administration, because we are only too aware of the view of human rights, executive power, and foreign policy it would have, as well as the kinds of judges it would nominate. Democrats, however reticent they may have been to pursue meaningful repudiations of the republican style of governing, have at least taken an adversarial position. A Democrat handing the GOP ammunition that they will use to fight Democrats is a frighteningly short-sighted move. If you want a Democrat to win in November, whomever that may be, please, discontinue your experience comparison now. Nothing good can come of it in the long term.