Why is Al-Qaeda unable to make any assassination attempts on any of the candidates? In fact, over six years have now gone by since 9/11, and no terrorist attacks of any kind have taken place here in our country. Not by Al-Qaeda, or any other terror group.
I had the rare opportunity for a beltway outsider to ask that question several years ago to Philip Zelikow, who was the director of the 9/11 commission and now does work in Iraq for Condoleezza Rice.
His answer was that getting people willing to actually blow themselves up is fairly rare (especially outside of the ME slums or educated and able to travel and operate successfully outside of the ME) and that al-Queda pretty much depleted itself on 9/11 in the US. He did expect outsiders to cross the border for a quick hit relatively soon, which hasn't happened.
What we have now, and have in Europe in many cases, is an entirely decentralized effort among like-minded extremist not directly affiliated to al-Queda. Their quality will vary. So far, it has sucked, fortunately. Just like the morons that made the first attempt on the Twin Towers and went back to collect the refund on the van.
Charon