Opinion
Time and again in this fascinating American election, pundits have read the last rites on the quest of Hillary Clinton to become the first female President. They said she had to win yesterday's Pennsylvania primary by a margin of double figures over Barack Obama to keep her campaign
alive. Still she presses on.
To what? She cannot overtake Mr Obama on elected delegates to the Democratic Party's convention, she can only hope to damage him enough that party elders, "superdelegates" to the convention, over-rule his popular vote, an unwise and increasingly unlikely prospect.
Mrs Clinton has fought a tenacious campaign to the point that she may have damaged her fellow senator's chances of defeating Republican John McCain. She has certainly damaged her own credibility. Her account of arriving at Kosovo under fire during her husband's presidency was disproved by news film.
It was a lapse that underlined considerable scepticism about her other claims to key roles in the Clinton Administration. "Experience", she says, distinguishes her from her rival, though her experience of state and federal government seemed to have been entirely through marriage.
That observation will be fairly resented by feminists of Mrs Clinton's age who have struggled for recognition of equality in all partnerships. The Clintons were clearly a political partnership in Bill Clinton's campaigns and he has played a prominent role in her presidential bid. In the White House she seemed much more than a ceremonial First Lady, though after an early unsuccessful attempt to lead health reform she did not feature publicly in policy making.
Strength and ambition enabled her to deal stoically with the embarrassment of her husband's personal behaviour. Elected to the Senate from New York, she set about her own political career with single-minded caution. Her vote for the invasion of Iraq was calculated for a presidential campaign. Liberal Democrats would forgive many a compromise for the sake of electing the first woman to the Oval Office.
They were not to know that another liberal Democrat had more audacious plans to make history. Mr Obama's arrival put the Clinton campaign on the wrong foot. She had wanted to be the candidate of "change" but she found herself running against a younger, fresher face, an African-American at that, who promised "change" with sublime eloquence and more credibility.
Beside him, Mrs Clinton has looked charmless, calculating and quite selfish in her refusal to retire from the race once it became impossible for her to win on elected delegates. She has yet to convince the superdelegates Mr Obama would be a liability against the Republicans.
The Republicans, in fact, would sooner face her than Mr Obama. She is less attractive than he to non-aligned voters, and more likely to make Republican voters stay loyal. Mr Obama has excited younger voters across the spectrum.
Those in the United States who have hoped with all their heart to see a woman elected President may instead see the first black American elected to the highest office. That, they probably agree, would be an achievement more remarkable and symbolically more important for their society.
There can be little doubt that if Mrs Clinton were elected she would do the job capably. Until the arrival of Mr Obama she looked a certainty for the Democrat nomination and, if the mood of the primaries is a guide, a Democrat will be the next President.
Whatever Mrs Clinton does now, her long, tireless campaign has done enough to leave no doubt that a woman can win.
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