By John O'Sullivan
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton exited the presidential race, pledging loyal support to Barack Obama. In reality she was shaking her fist defiantly at the victor. Her prolonged farewell, though undignified, is not hard to understand.
Unless she bullies Obama into making her his vice-presidential candidate - which looks unlikely - she is leaving national politics as well as the 2008 campaign.
Despite all the praise for her gallant uphill fight, Mrs Clinton blew a sure thing. As the candidate of inevitability, she lost. As the candidate of competence, she won most major battleground states, but lost the nomination because her campaign failed to organise in the smaller states. As the candidate with an unrivalled Democratic Rolodex, she lost the "super-delegates".
Even her late emergence as the friend of Joe Sixpack reflected her loss of most other Democratic constituencies rather than her recruitment of a new political base. She is a very implausible leader of a white working class that is drifting steadily towards the Republicans.
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