But Hayden – spectacled spy eyes dancing behind a blank-page technocrat’s mien – knew he’d dodged a more interesting question: It doesn’t look like Kasich is going to win – so who is your second choice?

“Number two… in the narrowly defined national security lane — I’m not talking about all the stuff to the right and all the stuff to the left, number two right now, best prepared from Day One: Secretary Clinton,” he told me, in roundabout fashion, during a 45-minute sit-down for POLITICO’s “Off Message” podcast last Friday.

Hayden is by no means a Clinton supporter (though, interestingly, he wouldn’t explicitly rule out voting for her up the line). And his praise for her is tempered by disapproval of her handling of her homebrew email server (he doesn’t buy her argument that she was following in Colin Powell’s footsteps) and Benghazi (he thinks her actions before and after the attacks were indefensible).