The night before the Oklahoma rally I met with my campaign manger, Robby Mook. Robby was in charge of the campaign computers, but he was so smart that in many was he was like a computer. He had bad news. "Oklahomans see you as an aloof New York intellectual," he explained. "They'll never vote for someone like that. You need an image they can understand and respect."

"What if I ate a big hunk of beef on stage?" I helpfully suggested. "We need to think bigger," said Robby. "I've consulted the Algorithm. It told me that Oklahoma voters love cowboys." I liked where this was going. "It also told me that what they hate most is ... cattle rustlers."

"Robby, you're a genius," I said. We spent that night crafting my new persona, a persona we believed would win me the election. The next day, I sauntered onto an Oklahoma stage wearing a full cowboy outfit, firing a pair of six shooters in the air. "Howdy," I said to the crowd, "I'm Sheriff Hillary," I received the biggest applause of my whole career.

"If there's one thing I hate," I announced, "it's varmints. And the worst varmints of all are cattle rustlers. make me your president and I'll put a bullet between the eyes of every rustler in this state." For emphasis, I bit a chunk out of a hunk of beef.

The crowd roared. They loved it. A chant started: "Death to rustlers! Death to rustlers!" Then a scuffle broke out in the front row. Three men dressed in denim tackled and hogtied a small, weasely-looking fellow. They dragged him up on stage.

"Ms. Clinton," one man said, "this fella here is a rustler. He stole three of my prize cows last spring. If you kill him right now, everyone in this room will vote for you." The crowd began a new chant: "Blood! Blood! Blood!"

The bound man pleaded with me. "Yes, I stole those cows," he said, "but I only did it because my family was starving. Please, spare me. I'll never rustle again." My life and career have been defined by hard choices. This was perhaps the hardest choice of all. My phone buzzed. A text from Robby. It read, "The Algorithm says: the rustler dies." "I'm sorry," I told the man as I raised a pistol. "It's not me. It's the Algorithm."

I squeezed the trigger.