IF HILLARY IS OUT – AT 9:53 A.M. ET:   What happens if Hillary Clinton's illness, or a second illness, or a relapse, forces her out of the presidential race?  Turns out the road ahead for the Democratic Party wouldn't be that clear.  From Heat Street:

When it comes to candidates (rather than office holders) the rules actually come from the political parties, not the Constitution. For Republicans, if a Presidential candidate dies or drops out, the RNC has to either convene a new convention or take an official poll of the RNC’s state representatives to select a replacement candidate. Most likely, the RNC would move the running mate up to the top of the bill, in order to preserve what fundraising has already been done for the ticket.

But for the Democrats, it’s not so clear. The Democratic National Committee reserves the right to replace a candidate who dies or drops out, and it doesn’t provide additional details in its by-laws. So presumably the Democrats would have to make up the process up as they go along. The DNC could entrust replacing Clinton to a central DNC brain trust or, more likely, replicate the RNC’s system, handing the vote over to the committee’s state delegates.

The DNC would likely want to retain the support of major donors who’ve already given to the Clinton-Kaine ticket, and would probably just bump Tim Kaine up from the Veep slot. Kaine would simply slide up the ticket, choose a new running mate, hope the ballots could be reprinted in time, and carry on just as Clinton had.

But, of course, this is 2016 and anything can happen.

Donald Trump has proven to be a wild card candidate: he’s spent no money, compared to Clinton’s million-dollar ad buys, and raised virtually nothing compared to his Democratic opponents, and he’s still running neck and neck with Clinton nationwide. So the DNC would likely have to consider whether Kaine could retain Clinton’s razor-thin lead, or whether they’d need a more capable candidate.

The DNC might naturally lean towards Joe Biden who said he didn’t want to campaign, but has never said, openly, that he’d prefer not to be President.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's stimulating speculation.  And, despite the coldness involved, we really must think about these possibilities so that we can be prepared for them.

September 12, 2016