The cable news networks are being very careful not to count Hillary out, even as she loses superdelegates and sees her lead slipping in the upcoming primary states. They got burned once before and they could get burned again by a premature political obituary, so they're keeping a race alive that they might otherwise have written off.
In the days when they might have been covering the beginning of McCain vs. Obama, therefore, they are endlessly discussing how the inevitable Hillary got into the underdog position, and what she has to do to win. They are dissecting the politics of the African American vote vs. the female vote and concluding that sexism is more of a barrier to the presidency than racism, and that Hillary's potential slide from frontrunner to loser must be partly the result of sexism.
The problem with this argument is that Hillary Clinton is not a typical woman, nor even a typical candidate. Her candidacy is representative of so much more than just the aspirations of a woman to the presidency.
Hillary Clinton is a former First Lady, the wife of a president who was impeached, the wife of a man who publicly humiliated her by having a sexual relationship with an intern.
Hillary Clinton is part of a husband wife team. People do not talk about Hillary Clinton in isolation. We hear about "the Clintons" or about the antics of her husband as much as we hear about her policy proposals.
Hillary Clinton is a woman who aspired to the presidency for at least eight years, and possibly more, running for the Senate in New York even though she was not a resident of New York, precisely because it would give her a good forum from which to launch a presidential bid.
Hillary Clinton is responsible for the failure of universal health care to be implemented and for a near sixteen year setback to the cause of health care reform.
Hillary Clinton is part of the presidential team that is largely responsible for giving us eight years of George W. Bush. Hillary Clinton said that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000, but the reality is that her husband Bill Clinton caused Al Gore to lose. Had Clinton not been impeached, George W. Bush could not have run on a pledge to restore dignity to the White House, Clinton could have campaigned for Gore and touted his excellent economic credentials, and Bush would not have gotten close enough to have Nader's votes even matter.
Bottom line: Hillary Clinton cannot run on her accomplishments alone. Fair or not, the reality is that Hillary Clinton brings enormous advantages as well as enormous baggage to her run for the White House. Any other woman running for the presidency would have neither those advantages nor those disadvantages.
Her huge advantages in being married to a popular former president and having a large contingent of Clinton loyalists behind her do not make her election to the presidency inevitable. They only get her close. But while her gender is significant, sexism in the American electorate will not be the reason she fails in her bid for the nomination. She will fail because of who she is, and the baggage she brings. She will fail because gender alone, and having the name of Clinton, is not enough for the American people. And she will fail because she is up against a superior candidate, and because the American people, having been burned by electing a second Bush, do not want to elect a second Clinton.
It isn't sexism that is defeating her. It is a combination of Clinton fatigue and Obama fever. And no matter how smart Hillary is, no matter how qualified, no matter how clever, these are factors she cannot overcome, and couldn't overcome even if she were a man.
