Tables turned as sure thing fights for her life

A YEAR ago, Hillary Clinton was joshing about whether she could appoint her husband secretary of state when she became president and Barack Obama was urging a throng to be realistic about his own chances.

“Let’s face it,” he said. “The novelty’s going to wear off.”

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Clinton coronation. The Democratic presidential race took several twists along the way and now Clinton, once the instant favourite, is struggling to overcome a daunting wave of Obamania.

“There’s a problem with inevitability,” said Dick Harpootlian, a former South Carolina party chairman who supports Obama. “It rarely proves to be true.”

When Clinton joined the race in January 2007 with a cosy webcast from her living room couch, the notion of a former first lady-turned-senator running to be the first female president was so new, so different, she quickly eclipsed rival candidates such as Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, all seasoned politicians.

“I’m in to win,” proclaimed Clinton. And she had the money to back up her bravado.

“I don’t think anyone can stop her,” trumpeted John Catsimatidis, a New York businessman and member of Clinton’s finance team, in February 2007.

“She’s unstoppable; she’s got such a machine.”

Her Democratic opponents didn’t buy it, though, and neither did the public.

“I lived through the inevitability of Howard Dean,” scoffed John Edwards, recalling the early darling of the 2004 presidential race who quickly faded from the Democratic field.

Bidding to become the nation’s first black president, Obama offered a fresh new face, and a message of hope and change that captured the public’s imagination.

His first visit to New Hampshire, in December 2006, before he’d entered the race, sparked such a frenzy of interest that even Obama dismissed it as hype, as his 15 minutes of fame.

“I think to some degree I’ve become a shorthand or a symbol or a stand-in for now,” he said. “It’s a spirit that says we are looking for different. We want something new.”

Obama joined the race in January 2007, a week before Clinton, and soon proved his appeal with voters was no passing fancy, that he was more than a cardboard stand-in.

He turned his short resume — just two years of national experience as a senator — into an asset by stressing that it was time for a new generation to step forward. Obama’s surprising ability to raise money — by the boatload — instantly served notice to Clinton he was not to be discounted. He matched Clinton almost dollar for dollar. By year’s end, both had raised more than $100 million (€66m) and blown through at least $80m, muscular figures that no other Democrat could touch.

In July, she dismissed Obama as “irresponsible and frankly naive” on foreign policy. In September, she ran the gauntlet of five Sunday talk shows in one day, saying “when I’m president” at least seven times.

Fast forward to Iowa where she was walloped but she recovered in New Hampshire. She was the newest comeback kid.

But Obama collected a stunning $36m in January, compared with $14m for Clinton. That gave him the firepower to challenge Clinton everywhere in the mega-round of primaries on Super Tuesday, the day that Clinton had once predicted would be the “finish line”.

Maybe today will be the finishing line for Clinton — but in a way she could have never imagined a year ago.