Who Will Replace Hillary?

On the morning of Sunday, September 11 — the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks — at a memorial ceremony in New York City, Hillary Clinton collapsed while attempting to abruptly leave the commemorative events.

Her Secret Service handlers rapidly dragged her limp body into the heavily-armored SUV she travels in and whisked her to her daughter Chelsea’s multimillion-dollar condominium to recover for several hours.

The moments of her collapse were dramatically caught on video by several bystanders, who promptly uploaded the footage to the web, whereupon chaos broke loose as voters began to see through the elaborate facade of “perfect health” her campaign has been promoting during the past weeks and months.

Aside from conservative news outlets having a field day with the video, it was reported that the Democratic National Committee was concerned enough to hold several behind-the-scenes meetings to determine a replacement for Clinton in the event that she’s unable to continue her presidential campaign.

If it turns out that Clinton is actually in as poor health as many doctors and observers have been speculating (judgments have ranged from Parkinsons’ disease to brain tumors to seizures), a replacement will be needed for her in order for the Democrats to have someone at the top of their ticket for Election Day.

While some commentators have said there’s a possibility that the Obama administration could postpone the election, this would likely be highly unpopular amongst the voting public.

So, to play Devil’s advocate, who could replace Clinton in the case of her summary withdrawal from the race? Most pundits agree that the top three choices would be either Clinton’s vice-presidential running mate Tim Kaine, current Vice President Joe Biden or Clinton’s former Democratic archival Bernie Sanders, who had competed neck-and-neck with Clinton for some time throughout the earlier primary season.

As vice president if Clinton is elected president, Tim Kaine would automatically become the nation’s leader if Clinton were incapacitated or passed away on the job. Clearly, both Clinton herself and her party are prepared for Kaine to take the reins in that event.

However, Kaine doesn’t enjoy the same name recognition as Clinton, and so it seems less likely that he would step in at this juncture to try to run against Republican nominee Donald Trump. Kaine’s public charisma and appearance are less than memorable, and he’s highly tied to his party’s corrupt machinery.

Those who don’t know much about Tim Kaine would be advised to research his background further; prior to serving as the junior Senator and Governor of Virginia, Kaine participated in missionary work in Honduras under the auspices of Jesuits who taught Marxist Liberation Theology (some of them were later arrested in the country for smuggling arms).

He also wrote a law review piece for Richmond University in which he touted the benefits of picking juries based on race-despite the practice being outlawed by the Supreme Court. He essentially argues that black people on juries will vote favorably for other black people.

Current Vice President Joe Biden might initially look like the Democrats’ strongest possible pick, but he too has multiple downsides. Despite running for president himself in 1988 and 2008 and memorably winning his vice-presidential debate with GOP candidate Sarah Palin in 2008 by most people’s judgments, Biden is still not looked at as favorably as President Obama (who himself is enormously controversial).

“Uncle Joe,” as he is sometimes referred to in the press, is often quick to speak and has committed numerous memorable gaffes in the past with statements ranging from condolences for the Irish Prime Minister’s mother (who was not dead) to saying Clinton was more qualified to be vice president than he was.

Ultimately, he’s less like everyone’s favorite uncle than many people’s “crazy father-in-law,” according to ad hoc reports. For the Democrats, he’s a “second fiddle” candidate who was chosen for the vice-presidency more due to his seniority than his popularity amongst constituents. Nonetheless, voters may see him as more tested than Tim Kaine.

Bernie Sanders at this point would be an unlikely replacement for Clinton for several reasons. Even though he ultimately did win 1,865 delegates in the primaries and showed that he enjoyed tremendous popular support at campaign rallies, the DNC clearly has disfavored him, as has been shown by Wikileaks’ dumps of DNC private emails and evidence of vote-rigging against him.

Sanders’ leftist positions are at odds with a number of Democratic Party platform planks, and his history (and present status) as an independent Socialist, rather than a Democrat, would discourage the DNC from selecting him to fill Clinton’s shoes.

A number of political jokes have referred to the DNC substitution meetings as “Weekend at Bernie’s” — a lampoon of the famous 1980s comedy starring Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman and Terry Kiser as their boss who is actually dead, who the pair drag around in public with sunglasses on in an effort not to be implicated in his murder — a clear reference to Clinton being dragged around by her Secret Service escorts.

Although Sanders would no doubt relish the opportunity to appear at the top of the Democratic ticket, the party choosing him to fill that role seems particularly improbable.

Another name that’s been bandied around as a possible replacement for Clinton has been that of Michelle Obama. While it’s true that the current First Lady enjoys outsized media coverage of her charity work and efforts to fight LGBT discrimination (and her resultant popularity ratings are arguably high), she lacks any formal political experience.

Some observers have speculated that she may run for office — possibly for the Senate — after her tenure as First Lady, just as Hillary Clinton did in 2000. But for now, her political inexperience would appear to rule her out entirely.

One other choice the Democrats could make might be someone such as current Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry memorably ran for president previously in 2004 and lost the popular vote by only 2.4 percentage points in the face of controversial voting results in Ohio.

Kerry also has long political experience prior to serving at the State Department as the junior Senator from Massachusetts for five terms. Kerry could pose a formidable challenge to Trump, but his weakness lies with his recent efforts in the Obama administration overseeing the abominable nuclear deal with Iran, in which the administration has been accused of lying to the public about the Iranians’ political stance.

There have also been controversies regarding Kerry’s handling of cease-fire negotiations in Syria and Palestinian-Isreali peace efforts with Isreal. In short Kerry’s negotiating skills can be described as weak at best.

It should also be said that Biden, Sanders and Kerry are also all older than Clinton; Biden is 73, Sanders is 75, and Kerry is 72 while Clinton is 68. So for the Democrats to replace Clinton with someone who is even older may strike some people as poor choices (although probably all of these potential substitutes are in better health than her).

Clinton’s health is a huge issue that could very well end her campaign almost immediately. Even if it doesn’t, the likelihood that she’ll remain healthy between now and Election Day looks less and less conceivable with each passing week. The Republican Party would be wise to game out scenarios for any of these possible replacements for Clinton, but for any of them to be put into the race two months before it’s decided is a huge advantage for the GOP.


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