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
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 office in the first place.
Clinton was always an imperfect test case for female achievement. “Somebody’s
wife,” as Elaine Kamarck, a professor of government at
Harvard
and a Clinton supporter, described her.
Still, many credit Mrs. Clinton with laying down a new marker for what a woman can accomplish in a campaign — raising over $170 million, frequently winning more favorable reviews on debate performances than her male rivals, rallying older women, and persuading white male voters who were never expected to support her.
clipped from: www.nytimes.com 