Last Hill Standing

 On Tuesday when Hillary Clinton* goes into the Wisconsin primary, she goes in as the last great standard bearer of the Establishment. The Bush branch is senior to the Clinton line, even now, but in the event that Jeb Bush can somehow seize the nomination, and the presidency, he would do so under tarnished circumstances that would mar his leadership even within his own party. He would have been the point man for a hatchet job to kill off the Republican Party so that no one else could have control of it. But he would still have a lot of work to do, to claim the true crown as head of America and the Establishment. He would have many challengers

Hillary, on the other hand, is the last great "real deal" of the Establishment. She is undisputed leader of her branch of the line, the clear heir to its founder in every way. With the Bush line in disarray, she is indisputably the next one up at bat.** The arguments for her presidency are impeccable by Establishment standards, and they boil down to the arguments for the existence of the Establishment itself, in raw form. It is there, so let it continue.

Even the argument that she is a woman, and therefore deserving of the presidency, has as much consistency of meaning as the argument for the continuance of the Establishment out of pure inertia.  "Because it is time for a woman" is the logical cousin of "Because it is never time to change certain things."

The basic idea is that there is no one else who can do the job. You have to choose her because she is the only choice. All other choices are folly and self-destructive. 

*There is a strange irony that the last great pure Establishment politician should bear the same surname as the political genius who, 200 years ago, launched the enterprise of Erie Canal, but that is how it worked out.

**Especially having tolerated the Obama insurgency within her branch. The long-staying staying power of the House of Obama within the Establishment is certainly an open question, but in any cause they are forced to take a pause at the moment.