In 2008, Hillary Clinton was the first serous female candidate and the first to ever win a presidential primary, eventually racking up 23 of them and arguably winning the popular vote, losing to the rising star of the party by only 97 pledged delegates, while only falling behind in superdelegates a month from the finish.

Throughout the primary campaign, Clinton was labeled as "inevitable", in lieu of her husband's presidency and her party connections, often as a pejorative accusing her of feeling entitled. Missing from this simplified equation was that many Democratic leaders had condemned her husband's actions, that he'd been impeached, that the 2000 election was largely about "Clinton fatigue" with many "liberal" media figures regularly slamming both Clintons' actions and reputation, and he didn't even have the coattails to pull his VP over the line.

Additionally, despite the "2 for the price of 1" angle, Hillary's stint as a policy-focused First Lady was still regarded as short of a real job, except the taint that came from failing to pass a long-desired healthcare measure - more due to own party obstructionism than the expected opposition from the GOP. The 2002 vote on the Iraq military authorization perversely became a priority that it hadn't been for candidates in 2004. And of course the appeal of a black candidate who was seen as a bit more inclusive than the sometimes acerbic and foot-in-mouthed Jesse Jackson inspired many throughout the party, including the growing ever-more-important Hispanic democgraphic.

In the end, there was little "inevitable" there once the actual contests began. Obama took Iowa out of the gate, and outspent Hillary in most races, and after a heavy loss in the 4th matchup in South Carolina, Hillary was playing catchup through the remainder of the season.

Despite this well-known history, a similar narrative has played out this year. Despite well-known significant anger towards the Clintons as the "Republican lite" establishment, still significant anger about Iraq and later war actions on her shift as Secretary of State, and larger anger by the left over more marginalization during the Obama years, Hillary went into this year's matchup as not only the presumptive favorite, but supposedly a "shoe-in". Yet this again ignores basic realities.

While the Clintons' prowess in raising money is legendary, that ability is limited by finance law as well as the continuing campaign expectation that she doesn't really need it. Additionally, the structure of the caucuses seems to actually benefit challengers and their irate, impassioned followers, a fact used by Obama's team to great delegate advantage and slightly less successfully by Sanders' team due to Hillary's experience in delegate math.

Though the 2008 meltdown is 7 years behind, lingering effects and what seems to be an inherent time lag has pushed anti-Wall Street sentiment to the fore, Despite stints as Senator and Secretary of State, many still seem Hillary's rise as part of her husband's patronage (with not too much credit for helping create the brand to begin with - instead seen as some kind of tainted WalMart Arkansas lawyer in the early years, with poverty & family advocacy largely sidelined). Hillary's early career building on Alinsky's ideas, clerking for the Watergate committee and working on the McGovern campaign has to a large extent been blunted by the teenage "Goldwater Girl" slur). Additionally, the scandal re: her email server kept at home has been a burr in her saddle the last 10 months, with not much sympathy for how that relates to continuing Republican witchhunts and more FOIA filings than the world has ever seen.

Nevertheless, it's all over but the shouting. And the shouting persists. Even though Hillary locked up superdelegates a half a year ahead of Obama's pace, and largely put away Sanders with an uncatchable pledged lead roughly 2 months ahead of Obama, Hillary is now criticized for "not putting Bernie away" in what should have been a "no-contest" contest. Unlike the excitement with Obama's historic 2008 candidacy, the excitement about the almost certain first female party nominee has been largely diluted by the "not voting my vagina" spin. While it was considered presumptious for Hillary to expect any platform or other concessions in 2008, certainly not an offer of VP, with any of her sore sport followers roundly criticized if not backing Obama, Hillary is largely expected to persuade her opponent's followers to back her, and to her credit, she seems to be pushing ahead in doing just that, tailoring some interesting initiatives that seem to be both well-formed policy rather than pure pander, while tilting left in ways that seem practical. Whether these actions satisfy the far left and a continued presumption that she's just trying to sell out to right-wing interests despite a pretty consistent 40 year pattern... well, that remains to be seen.

I'm reminded of when the Dixie Chicks made their fairly innocuous comments about Bush, certainly a lot less venemous than what's been said about Obama and Hillary on a daily basis since (Ted Nugent, anyone?) or by Trump in every speech - and had major backlash with radio station boycotts and pretty much the destruction of their careers. I have trouble imagining a boy band having to do so much explaining or that backlash would have been so huge. Justin Bieber is tolerated; Courtney Love is loathed. 

And I have a bad taste in my mouth from too many "we wuz robbed" declarations over the last 6 months. It's almost 170 years since the famed gathering of early feminists at Seneca Falls, robbed as it were, and somehow what should be a watershed moment is having much of the joy sucked out of it. I'm reminded that at Wellesley, Hillary's class learned how to coordinate and cater banquets for hundreds & thousands as a natural part of women's work, what females were expected to do over and over through their major careers as housewives and supporting partners. Somehow it feels like she's crashing her own party - that she didn't wrap things up quick enough, that she hasn't been a good enough Democrat, that she relied too much on others, that she should have been paying more attention to the other sides' issues than playing a practical agenda, that she doesn't have a honed simplified political angle, and that she's not a natural politician in a year we supposedly laud non-politicians, even though it just looks like a different kind of celebrity fandom to me.

About 25 years ago, I first heard the question "what will the first female president do in the White House?" answered with "The dishes". Aside from an even more cynical "learn to make license plates" response, I don't think that much has changed. Just as Obama was often billed as representing women better than Hillary, in 2016 we're supposedly post-feminism, so that women have more important issues to fret about. While I appreciate women's ability to take one for the team, over and over, it feels that's never enough to have women's issues and needs be equivalent to the needs of others, or that women's achievements to rank more than an asterisk. Perhaps Hillary will become the Roger Maris of politics - coulda shoulda woulda style. Well fuck 'em anyway - what would she do her first day in the White House? Anything she fucking wants. That indeed would be enough.

2008                                                                      2016