Heres someone you may hear over the next few days: Bob Torricelli, the New Jersey Democrat who dropped out of his Senatere-election race in October 2002.
Torricelli was hamstrung byan investigation into some shady fundraising practices, which meant his Republican challenger was suddenly deemedlikely to win. Democrats panicked, dropped Torricelli, and dusted the mothballs off retired Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who took his place and easily won on Election Day.
So why are we talking about Torricelli? Could it be that Hillary Clinton, under pressure regarding stories about her health, mightpull a similar maneuver, and let someone elserepresent her party inNovember?
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Hillary Clinton's campaign is apologizing for not revealing her pneumonia diagnosis sooner. Now, Clinton's team is attempting to manage the damag...
On the face of it, thatseems absurd, doesnt it? Clinton is still the odds-on favorite to win, for one thing. And if she collapsed (or stumbled, to use the Democrats preferred terminology) just because she has a touch of pneumonia, then why would she drop out? Some antibiotics, a few days rest, and shell be fine.
But lets for a moment entertain a hypothetical: what if its worse than pneumonia? What if we see another episode?
Clinton wouldnt be the first presidential aspirant to mislead the public about health woes. Jack Kennedy, for example, marketed himself as an athlete but was so plagued by various ailments that he might not have lived through a second term. (Were it not for the back brace he was wearing to keep him upright in Dallas, in fact, theres a chance Oswald never would have hit him with that second lethal bullet.)
So a certain skepticism is warranted about the physical fitness of presidential candidates. Yet Clintons health has been a forbidden subject for those of us in the respectable press, making it a story that existed only in the fever swamps of the internet. Talking about her physical fitness for the office would only mainstream theories that were unproven (or debunked, to use the medias preferred terminology as of a week ago).
It even had the taint of sexism: why imply that the woman in the race, who happens to be younger than her opponent, is the weaker one?
Then, of course, we saw her being dragged into that van by agents who seemed distinctly non-shocked that the candidate needed such assistance. We saw her feet limply drag along into the vehicle, although her campaign still insists she never lost consciousness and recovered quickly.
We were told she was overheated, then seven hours later,we were told it was pneumonia, diagnosedFriday.The pneumonia isnon-contagious, as she had embraced children that weekend, and therefore perhaps unrelated to the bug that had just swept her office. It also apparently wasnt that severe on Friday, the day she was diagnosed, when she seemed just fine.
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Former president Bill Clinton will fill in for his wife on the campaign trail over the next few days as she recovers from pneumonia. Clinton spok...
The cough last week? Allergies. It may haveled to the pneumonia, or had a hand in it. Dehydration is anotherculprit, were told, as the candidate has an aversion to drinking water.The important thing is, her campaigntells us, is that she feels great. Much better. Sheis always feeling great and better, they tell us.
The truth is itsprobably just pneumonia, which can be mild,and shell recover swiftly. The safe bet is still that she comes back in a couple days, does well enough in the debates, and beats Trump in November.
But its understandable to have a piece of nagging doubt about Clintons health. The video is disconcerting --the way she moves, the expressions of her handlers. After months of dismissingdoubts about her physicalfitness as expressions of lunacy, are we stillsupposed toassume that Clinton is as well as her campaign insists? Theres a sense theyre still being a bit dodgy with the facts, as with campaign spokesman Brian Fallons insistence to CBS News Nancy Cordes on Monday that she was helped into the van because she felt a bit dizzy.
The (somewhat charitable) mainstream media consensus right now is that the Clintons are locked in a cycle of paranoia that begets press suspicion that begets more paranoia. Lets assume that thats what were seeing here. And then lets remember what we saw on Sunday, those limp feet being dragged into the van.
In any event, the Democratic Party rules are pretty clear on what happens if she drops out; the DNC would fill the vacancy, and you assume Tim Kaine might be the replacement nominee, this years Lautenberg. Or perhaps Joe Biden. Shorn of all that Clinton baggage, either would be a formidable opponent come November. Either could handily beat Trump.
NPRs Cokie Roberts, among others, said Clintonspneumonia incident has the Democraticparty very nervously beginning to whisper about her stepping aside and finding another candidate.Chances are this is just to make sure they have a game plan in the very unlikely case that they have a vacancy, because after the DNC has made a decision, there would be many legal realities to consider, such as ballot rules at the state level and what individual electors can and cannot do.
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"Face the Nation" host John Dickerson weighs in on both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have problems being transparent to the American publich ...
Again, itseemsfar-fetched that any of this could come to pass. But its squarely Clintons fault that we are talking about it to begin with. She hasnt released the kind of extensivemedical records that should be expected of presidential candidates of an advanced age, like John McCain, who set the gold standard for such disclosures backin 2008.Voters deserve far more information from Clinton and Trump about their health than we have now,the White House physician for George H.W. Bush, Dr. Burton Lee, told The New York Times last month.
Trump should release them too, of course hes a little older than Clinton, is likely clinically obese, and has what appears to bean awful diet. Should such a release prove too difficult -- McCains long tenure in the Navy made finding his record easier -- they can both submit to an evaluation from a panel of independent doctors, an idea Politicos Dan Diamondrecently floated.
Its true that, as in so many things this election season, theres a risk herein holdingClinton to a higher standard than her opponent. But despite Trumps obvious bad habits, it can be fairly reasoned that Clinton has a greater burden of proof when it comes to her health, what withher bloodclot and concussion a few years back, the at-times conflicting stories about both, the persistent coughing,andher thyroid condition.
He also hasnt gone completely limp on the campaign trail yet, at least not on camera. Of all the worries we have about Trump, his physical health, rightly or wrongly, is pretty far down the list.
Clinton maywonderwhy we keep asking. Its probablyall benign. But the numerous attempts to explain her ailments --allergies,overheating, dehydration, pneumonia --over the course of not so many days makes me wonder if theyll be any more explanations, and whether this is the last Clinton healthepisode well see before Election Day.
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