Why Hillary Clinton's 'Likeability' May Not Matter to Voters in 2016 … Hillary Clinton's candidacy will test an important proposition in presidential politics: Do voters cast ballots for candidates they don't necessarily like? Mrs. Clinton isn't hanging her candidacy on the idea that she's especially personable. The thrust of her campaign is that in precarious times she has the résumé, toughness and specific mix of policy proposals that surpass what anyone else has on offer. – Wall Street Journal

Dominant Social Theme: Expertise wins big in 2016 – and Hillary's got it.

Free-Market Analysis: History is funny and perhaps Hillary Clinton will win the presidency because at a Republican special committee on the Benghazi State Department tragedy she testified for 11 hours.

The Committee is run by Trey Gowdy, seemingly one of Congress's more ethical and disciplined members. In a post-hearing interview with "Meet the Press," he made the point that Clinton had asked to testify and had wanted the testimony to be public.

It is certainly possible that she calculated her public testimony would end up in a marathon interview and that the "optics" would be of a grandmother being grilled for a full day by a panel of truculent male Caucasians.

In his interview, Gowdy comes across as surprised that she wanted yet another day of public hearing regarding Benghazi, and this is perhaps the strangest part of the saga. Did Gowdy not know what Hillary was hoping for? If he didn't, he's quite naïve for a politician. And if he did know, he certainly gave her exactly what she wanted. And in the aftermath of the hearing, the mainstream spin was predictable and powerful.

Gowdy himself went on the defensive the next day, and tried to point out that Clinton's third episode of testimony was part of a much larger process. But the damage was done. It was visual damage and no words could change it.

A 60-something woman had been forced to endure an 11-hour grilling and her aplomb and grace under pressure seems to have virtually assured her nomination, absent a variety of other factors. (We'll get to those in a moment.)

This recently published Wall Street Journal article builds on Clinton's Benghazi triumph. Here she cemented her role as a tough, professional politician who could handle almost anything.

From the Journal:

Ask Clinton supporters what they like about her, and they don't mention her winning personality so much as what they describe as her resilience, preparedness and experience.

Tom Ross, 65, who attended a recent Clinton rally in Salem, N.H., said afterward that he was sold on Mrs. Clinton after seeing how she coped with her 11-hour appearance in October before the Republican-controlled House committee looking into the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

"She was superhuman that day," Mr. Ross said, citing her professionalism, poise and stamina. "If I ever had any qualms about her being the right person, that settled it for me."

At this point, given Hillary's control over the Democratic Party and the lack of persuasive challengers, there doesn't seem to be much that can keep her from winning the nomination.

Over at LewRockwell.com, Andrew Napolitano has written an article on the one issue that could still upset her coronation. Entitled, "More Hillary Chronicles," it deals with the ongoing FBI investigation into how she handled emails during her tenure as Secretary of State.

What began as an innocent Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch, a D.C.-based public advocacy group promoting transparency in the executive branch, has now become a full criminal investigation, with Clinton as the likely target.

In fact, the email issue was dismissed by the federal judiciary. Only after The New York Times "revealed that Clinton used a private email server instead of the government's server for all of her work-related and personal emails" did the issue become an important one. Napolitano believes Clinton may have committed serious federal crimes.

For example, it is a crime to steal federal property. What did she steal? By diverting to her own venue the digital metadata that accompany all emails – metadata that, when attached to the work-related emails of a government employee, belong to the government – she stole that data.

The metadata do not appear on her paper copies – hence the argument that she stole and destroyed the government-owned metadata. This is particularly troublesome for her present political ambitions because of a federal statute that disqualifies from public office all who have stolen federal property.

At the end of the article, Napolitano relates that "a group of FBI agents" reviewed evidence regarding Clinton's behavior two months ago and concluded the evidence warranted a criminal investigation. This is now, apparently, ongoing.

It is a weird political season. The Democrats´ standard-bearer is being investigated for federal crimes. On the Republican side, leading candidate Donald Trump has been compared to Hitler and Mussolini for statements he's made generalizing about waves of immigrants entering the US both legally and illegally.

Hillary has been able to shut down almost all opposition on her march toward the nomination. Trump has not been able to shut down even a modicum of the vitriol being aimed in his direction. Yet both candidates may soon gain their parties' respective blessings.

If so, such a matchup would surely be seen by many as a commentary on the US political system. Clinton's negatives are huge. Perhaps half the country believes she's dishonest. Donald Trump is now seen by many as a bigot and racist. Fewer and fewer believe in the system these days. Trust in Congress is in the single digits in the US.

The result, of course, has been the invention of a new ruling structure that is being implemented even now. We call it "technocracy," the rule of a few hyper-intelligent but disinterested intellects, each a giant in his or her own field.

These fantastic individuals will move smoothly back and forth between global capitalism and global government. They will be the acolytes of an increasingly internationalized system of production and governance.

If you look closely, you can see evidences of this structure emerging, though whether or not the system actually comes to fruition remains to be seen. But it is being organized, in part because Western, regulatory democracy has shed its credibility.

This is a significant fact but one not generally recognized because it is little commented on in the mainstream media. Yet it exists and ought to be taken into account when people plan for their future, either at home or abroad.