With less than two weeks until election day, an eight-point drop in the polls over the past week would have any candidate beginning to contemplate the possibility of defeat.  It is moments like these, however, where a candidate can define himself as a fighter. 

Is it possible that out of the ashes of the WikiLeaks inferno, Hillary can emerge as a true champion, a survivor, and someone with the stamina to go toe to toe with the male-centric foreign leadership that constitutes the international system?

If you are a member of Hillary's campaign team (pronounced "mainstream media"), then the answer is still...hopefully.

Unfortunately, this is not a Hollywood success story about a young American girl who grows up to become the first female president.  This is real life, and Hillary is the antithesis of the traits Americans have grown to love about a true underdog.

As hard as the media has tried to paint her as a powerful woman to idealize, the reality is, she is the model pantomime villain.  As feminist Camille Paglia so eloquently stated, "the woman is a disaster." 

She isn't reminiscent of the brave General Maximus from the Academy Award-winning film Gladiator.  She's Commodus – a self-obsessed leader willing to do anything necessary to maintain power while saving face with the masses.  Hollywood loves these characters because they are so easy to hate.  They are selfish; possess a disgusting lust for power; and will unapologetically lie, kill, and destroy if there is something to be gained.

My dad (an Italian born in Brooklyn) tells a story about a time he was visiting his in-laws in Mexico and one of my mom's cousins brought him to a cockfight.  The scene he described was something right out of a Tarantino film.

He arrived at a remote location, and after walking through a series of corridors, he reached a doorway guarded by armed men.  As he passed through the doorway, he was immediately met with a cloud of cigarette smoke, the stench of tequila, and the drunken roar of anticipation.  He looked down into a sunken arena where two roosters were about to fight.

As the roosters were thrown together, the metal spurs attached to their feet immediately started inflicting devastating damage.  Moments later, one of the roosters fell over, and my dad thought the fight was over.  However, in an instant, the handler of the fallen rooster swept in, picked up the rooster, sucked out blood from its beak, spit it out, took a swig of tequila, spit it down the rooster's throat, and carefully directed the temporarily revived rooster back into the fight.  The half-dead rooster instinctively began fighting again and, as luck would have it, landed an instant killing strike to his opponent.  The crowd erupted into a frenzy as money began to be divvied up according to the winning rooster – which was now actually dead.

As I watch this election come to its brutal end, I find the cockfight experience to have disturbing parallels to Hillary's campaign.  The WikiLeaks emails would have killed off any previous candidate, but Hillary's handlers have swooped in at the eleventh hour and are attempting to keep her on her feet just a little longer.  She doesn't have to survive long – just eleven more days.  This desperation is not centered on the fear of not winning; her entire campaign (and surrogates) knows that failing to win has ramifications far beyond a monetary loss.

With all presidential elections comes a rebalancing of power, and Hillary's team is considering the possibility of transitioning from untouchable status to scapegoat status.  Without an impotent Department of Justice and lapdog attorney general, the media would be Clinton's only protection.  With media approval ratings at an all-time low, the most expedient course of action would be to disassociate themselves from this late-term political abortion.

How will the recent revelation about the FBI reopening their probe into Hillary's email server play out in the media?  At this point, it is anyone's guess.  However, if Hillary does make it across the finish line as the victor, it will be reminiscent of the Hollywood classic Weekend at Bernie's – her weak and battered corpse carried to the winner's circle, supported on one side by the bloodstained face of Abedin and on the other by a tequila bottle-wielding Podesta.

Anthony DeChristopher is a nine-year veteran of the United States Army Special Forces and holds a M.A. in strategic security studies from National Defense University's College of International Security Affairs.  He blogs at exceptionism.com.