For a woman accused of moving to the political center, Hillary Clinton - more than any other Democratic candidate - knows the terrain on the Hard Left.
Mrs. Clinton, who majored in political science at Wellesley, chose leftist organizer Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, as the centerpiece of a 1969 thesis on poverty in the United States.
Her paper earned an "A" and - when she graduated - it was shipped off to the archives.
But it was sealed in the nineties when reporters - looking for a scoop on Mrs. Clinton - came knocking at Wellesley.
The hunt for the missing thesis began.
First, columnist Barbara Olson, author of a couple of books on the Clintons, came across a bootleg and wrote about its contents in a 2000 column ("Hil's Thesis Reveals Her Mind").
Next, a copy showed up on eBay.
Bidding (and fake bidding) reached $50,000.
Then a wire service reported that the thesis was available at Wellesley, where it had been returned to the archives in 2001 when the Clintons left the White House.
But it was too late.
The "missing" thesis had become political lore.
One writer complained - as recently as 2004 - that Mrs. Clinton continued to keep it "under lock and key," and another repeated the rumor in the Wall Street Journal.
Neither was correct.
But lost in the treasure hunt was the importance of what it actually said.
Why, in the world, was it sealed?
Maybe it undermined President Clinton.
He proposed the same community-based programs in 1993 that Mrs. Clinton had railed against in 1969.
Or maybe it was perceived - by some in her cadre - as un-American.
It depicted an ideal world.
But it warned that only certain people could build that world and probably only with conflict.
Much of this she attributed to Alinsky.
Mrs. Clinton added a few criticisms, too: she mentioned his "contradictions" more than once, and chided him a couple of times for "war-like" rhetoric.
But she called his plan "constructive," seemed to endorse the principle that society had to be reorganized in a top-down model, and - at the end of the paper - compared Alinsky to national heroes like Martin Luther King.
Sure, it was written in 1969.
But, in the context of her recent statements, it seems relevant to the present.
It makes her campaign song - "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" - seem more like a threat than a promise.
To read Mrs. Clinton's senior thesis, please contact:
Wellesley College Archives
Margaret Clapp Library
Wellesley MA 02481
(contact number at link)