Perhaps as a distraction but you are probably right. Usually any violent, dramatic and evil act always has its own imitators. We have stopped the AQ imitators, but the counter-recruitment efforts are so below the radar that we cannot stop the imitators especially if they are nuisances.
I also agree that AQ loves collateral damage, but the maps, the locations everything makes me think of a terrorist group(like AQ) casing a place to do whatever evil they can think of inside or outside of that area. Now there are also other groups who love that stuff but are very different from AQ(like the Weather Underground who made it a point that they would only use their bombings as political statements and not as murders). What we are basically looking for is a lower-profile insignificant version of Mark David Chapman, who used a tabloid cover to find and kill John Lennon.
I also agree that AQ is smarter than just some guy on a bike breaking a few windows. The volunteer to a Presidential campaign is indeed an interesting suggestion, could there be a lot more with the conversations that the Weather Underground leaders had with Obama than we think? Perhaps that is why Obama seems so new, messianic, and has a checkered past that he isn’t too prone to rhapsodize about.
I am not a conspiracy nut, nor do I think that anything is “going on”. Afterall using that kind of logic, maybe Huma has something up her sleeve.
I agree that this is more likely a domestic liberal than an Al Qaeda operative.
However, two things to consider:
1) Even with border control, government stinks at controlling the border.
2) Don’t discount the possibility that this is a VietNam draft dodger coming home for one last “hurrah”.