Speculation runs rampant: why is Hillary sticking around after it's blatantly obvious that she won't get the nomination? Is she incapable of admitting defeat? Prepping for a future run at the White House? Doesn't want to let down her hard-core supporters? Hoping to clear up her debt and get her campaign to repay her for her personal investment? Is she just being spiteful to the brazen upstart who side-tracked her inevitability?
Maybe we learned another reason, today.
There are as many interesting theories as there are pundits to spout them, and the question has dominated the US domestic news cycle in the face of disaster in China, Burma, and even horrible tornados in our own country. Like it or not the US electorate has a morbid fascination with Clinton-Watching, one we're indulging in like a forbidden dessert. Both her supporters and her detractors offer competing theories, complete with logical rationales, alleged "inside" information, and plenty of charts and graphs. Why would Hillary stick? It's like arguing about why another Hillary climbed Mount Everest.
But there is an elephant in the room, and it isn't the Republican sort. No one wants to talk about it publicly, for fear of being touted as a racist or inviting the event. It's the "A" word: Assassination.
Political assassination has a distasteful history in our Republic. Our Founding Fathers were well aware of the practice, having seen it in "foreign satrapies" reigning at the time, and eventually took steps to discourage it by amending the original Constitution's declaration that the Vice President would be the runner-up to the President in the general election. While that may have been adequate in the early, congenial years after our rebellion, it was quickly realized that this practice practically begged one party to engineer an "unfortunate accident" or outright gangland shooting for the President to ensure political succession. They fixed it, though, and political assassination has been looked at distastefully as a political tool ever since.
Yet it has been practiced here. Lincoln, JFK, RFK, MLK, all fell to the assassin's bullet. Bobby Kennedy died before he was even elected – and he was just a white Catholic liberal. Ronald Reagan and Jerry Ford were almost taken out, and Saddam Hussein's keystone cops had grand plans to axe Bush, Sr. – no doubt helping to inspire our present quagmire in the desert.
The stakes couldn't be higher: America is poised for a sea-change, a shattering of the electoral pattern that has ruled us for nearly a decade. The racial component of this election alone has shaken the pillars of our political establishment – and we haven't even hit the no-holds-barred general election yet. When you add the racial element to the already-heated debate, the potential for a self-appointed savior of humanity becoming the newest "lone gunman" starts to become significant. No doubt one of the reasons that Obama didn't campaign too much in predominantly white (and culturally racist) West Virginia is that when you are a target for assassins in the first place, avoiding the biggest hotspot of white supremacy and liberal gun laws is just good thinking.
But what if that is the thing that Hillary is banking on?
While both she and Obama enjoy the protection of the Secret Service (who obviously know their business) she also knows that no amount of security can stop a determined assassin. One crazy white man with a gun collection and the idea he has nothing to lose, and Hillary's political fortunes change. While that thought properly horrifies the vast majority of Americans, myself included, there is no doubt that such an attack, if successful, would allow Hillary to ride to victory on a wave of righteous outrage and blind grief. While this is a profoundly cynical viewpoint, even an objective observer would have to credit the Clinton machine with a generous helping of cynicism. "Kum By Yah" types they are not.
I'm not accusing Hillary, here – but it is a possibility, and she would profit from it. Today's major gaffe suggests the thought has crossed her mind -- it has to be an alluring one. A Democratic Party so united in grief would be nigh unstoppable in the Fall election, from the top of the ticket to the bottom, and the only apparently viable power center left after such a shock would be hers. She would have her mandate, her Democratic majority in Congress, and a Republican Party in the process of disintegration. Hillary's fondest political wish come true.
In the midst of so much attempted-olive-branch-waving, it's astonishing that she should bring this ugly business to light herself -- it's more the sort of thing we'd see on Fox. Is she that utterly cynical? Or is she merely playing the odds, banking on bad craziness the way a gambling addict puts her last chips on double zeroes and prays? No one seriously wants to admit the possibility lest they inspire someone, but it's there, and as long as she stays in the race, right up to the convention, she has a potential "Plan B" should some crazy racist redneck get lucky. It's not a great Plan B, but it's better than open, humiliating defeat.
Now, do we really want this woman as Vice President? Really? Or is she just showing off her glittering vice-presidential talent (the ability to have a heartbeat in case the president dies)? You be the judge.