Hillary Clinton and the Audacity of Inevitability

Here we go again. We last travelled down this road eight years ago. Then, as now, Hillary Clinton was laying the ground for a run to the White House. Then, as now, she presented herself as the inevitable candidate. So inevitable that it was scarcely worth anyone’s time or effort to oppose her. Hillary was going to win and the Clintons have long memories.

We know what happened next. It turned out there was an alternative after all. One, moreover, who had opposed the Iraq War and who enjoyed the only personal characteristics that could plausibly defeat Hillary’s It’s time for a woman candidacy. One who could ask America to move on from the Clinton-Bush era and begin afresh.

And yet here we are again. Polls suggest it will be different this time. Clinton is hardly unsinkable but she begins from a position of such strength – in terms of experience, organisation, name recognition and money – that absent some dramatic episode of self-harm it is hard to see how she can be deprived the nomination this time.