It now looks as though former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to run out the clock on her email scandal, hoping that by the time anything comes to fruition she's going to be safely ensconced in the Oval Office.

It's a bad strategy for her, because it might not work, and for the country, because it just might. What Clinton stands accused of is criminal conduct, perhaps not of the pure and simple kind but nonetheless sufficient to send lesser lights to prison in different circumstances. Fortunately for the Democratic Party's presidential front-runner, she's too big to jail so she'll probably get off with a slap on the wrist.

Here's some of what we know, thanks to the hard work and industry of a few reporters who have stayed on the story despite the "there's nothing there there" spin coming from so many pro-Clinton corners. No less an authority than The Washington Post said Sunday that an analysis it had conducted of the portion of her correspondence that has been released to the public showed Clinton "wrote 104 emails that she sent using her private server while secretary of state that the government has since said contain classified information." That's a far cry from what she said originally after the House select committee investigating the Benghazi massacre revealed the existence of the private server in the first place. "Clinton's authorship of dozens of emails now considered classified could complicate her efforts," the Post continued, "to argue she never put government secrets at risk."

If the pattern of denial seems at all familiar, it should. It was honed to a razor's edge over eight years when the Clintons last occupied the White House. It starts with an indignant rejection that any wrong-doing occurred and that to suggest otherwise is to play into the hands of the former first couple's political opponents. That's followed by a grudging admittance that while perhaps something happened it was a) all a mistake b) nothing serious and c) certainly not something that rose to the level of dishonesty the first couple's political opponents had been suggesting.

It goes on from there and includes more steps than Elizabeth Kubler-Ross does in her landmark "On Death and Dying," but ends up in the same place: acceptance. Only, in this case, instead of acceptance of fault, it's a reluctant admission misconduct did occur, coming at a time when people are so sick and tired of hearing about it all that they end up insulated from any real political damage.

Clinton thinks she can wait it out. She might be able to – but would it really be good for the country if she's the nominee, or worse the president, when the FBI finally comes in with a finding that a criminal referral to the U.S. Department of Justice is necessary? She'd rather fight this out in the court of public opinion, where she can win, instead of in a court of law, where she might lose. Up to know she's been able to pick the terrain on which her battles have been fought. That won't last. From all appearances, a day of reckoning is coming. It is unlikely she will be exonerated, which means she will be dealing with whether or not she broke the law and not how serious her offense was, as much as she might rather it be the latter.

This all works to the GOPs political advantage. Younger voters, especially the millennials that some consultants believe have the keys to the kingdom locked up in their smartphones, don't remember the earlier Clinton scandals. It's been nearly 20 years since Bill was president and I would be hard pressed to name them all myself without first checking Wikipedia. The point is these voters aren't aware we've been here before. Once it's explained to them they might not be willing to go there, which works to the benefit of anyone at the top of the Republican ticket, including the increasingly radioactive Donald Trump.