Prometheus 6

As Clinton’s Hopes Dim, Gender Issue Lives On
By JODI KANTOR

With each passing day, it seems a little less likely that the next president of the United States will wear a skirt — or a cheerful, no-nonsense pantsuit.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now in what most agree are the waning days of her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. To use her own phrase, she has been running “to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling” in American life, and now the presidency, or even a nomination that once seemed to be hers to claim, seems out of reach.

Along with the usual post-mortems about strategy, message and money, Mrs. Clinton’s all-but-certain defeat brings with it a reckoning about what her run represents for women: a historic if incomplete triumph or a depressing reminder of why few pursue high political office in the first place.

Hillary lost votes because she's a woman, but she didn't lose the nomination because she's a woman.