Sarah Palin still has a "what might come" to look forward to. Hillary Clinton is now stuck with "what might have been":
But it's hard to imagine Hillary Clinton ever playing just a supporting role. She is now both a smaller and a larger figure than when she set out on her first presidential-campaign swing through frigid Iowa nearly two years ago. And that puts her at something of a crossroads. "She's not who she was before she ran, when everyone deferred to her as a former First Lady and a President-in-waiting," says a prominent Democratic strategist. While she didn't achieve the Clinton Restoration, Hillary emerged from that race as the symbol of a movement that has come to represent the hopes and frustrations of millions of working-class Democrats.
The interesting thing is that when we finally do put a woman in the White House, it won't be any big deal. We're expending so much emotional energy on "the first African American to win the presidency!!" that blathering on about "the first woman!!" will seem silly and downright retrograde. On the whole, that's probably more a good thing than a bad one, wouldn't you say?
