New York: Hillary Clinton's long, long political march was paved with extraordinary accomplishment; signposted by humiliation and staggering resilience. It ended in heartbreak and horror.
Picking through the entrails of this campaign Clinton will wonder how she lost a race against a political novice, a self-described "blue-collar billionaire" with a track record of bankruptcies, a playboy with a history of sexist language, a candidate who launched his campaign with the slander of Hispanics, the fastest growing racial demographic in the nation.
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US election enters final moments
Supporters of both Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton await the final results of the US presidential election.
The electorate never truly warmed to Clinton, but she believed her extraordinary resume, her campaign's professionalism, Donald Trump's even greater unpopularity and President Barack Obama's magical political gift would carry her to victory. In recent days her formidable political machine even believed it would be a significant victory.
In the end working class voters in rust-belt states warmed to Trump's charismatic, nostalgic message of returning America to a greatness that existed – if it ever did – before globalism, free trade, mass immigration and the financial crisis, before gay marriage and Obamacare.
![The electorate never truly warmed to Hillary Clinton, but she believed her extraordinary resume, her campaign's ...](/web/20161110044817im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/k/6/0/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gslk03.png/1478688124154.jpg)
On Monday night Clinton addressed a buoyant mass of supporters in Philadelphia. Campaign staff would not say it, but they thought they were about to win. "I regret deeply how angry the tone of the campaign became," she said. "Not your fault!" a woman shouted. She smiled.
Everything about the moment spoke of her confidence. She had not wanted to get in a mud fight with a political novice to win this election, but once in one, she thought she won it.
Less than a day later she was locked in a war room at the Peninsula Hotel – just a stone's throw from Trump's headquarters in Trump Tower – watching the lead every leading analyst in the country believed she had collapse as working class white voters in Democratic rust-belt states turned their back on her and the Democratic Party.
Blocks away at the Javits Centre, a convention hall with a glass ceiling girded by steel, her stunned supporters watched the bloodbath unfold at what was to have been the site of a celebration of historical significance.
![As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was admired as an indefatigable diplomat, one who managed to rebuild America's ...](/web/20161110044817im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/l/7/7/f/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gslk03.png/1478677369357.jpg)
The location was significant.
When Clinton lost the 2008 primary against Barack Obama – a race that all thought was hers to lose – she addressed women directly during her concession speech. Though she had failed to shatter that last glass ceiling, together they had made 18,000,000 cracks in it.
At 8.55pm Clinton sent out a tweet of her embracing a girl. "This team has so much to proud of. Whatever happens tonight, thank you for everything."
To her supporters, to American women, indeed to women around the world, this sounded horrifyingly like a concession speech.
Before midnight it was clear she had lost Florida and North Carolina and she was behind in the Democratic states of Michigan and Wisconsin, a state she had not bothered campaigning in. She was even trailing in Pennsylvania.
A troubled relationship
Throughout her career of unstinting public service and unyielding ambition, Clinton has had a troubled relationship with the people she so desperately wanted to lead. As first lady of Arkansas she ruffled feathers with her activist presence and her refusal to take her husband's name. She blamed herself for his loss after a single term. She later changed her name and her ways, in public, and helped run his comeback campaign.
As first lady she led the administration's efforts to reform America's health system. Not only did the effort fail but it earned her the ire of many in Congress and the public who did not like her consequential role. She retreated to a more traditional role and became an advocate for the rights of women, which she famously declared were human rights.
She suffered the humiliation of the partisan investigation of her husband's infidelities and later built her own reputation as a dedicated senator for New York, an effective legislator admired on both sides of the aisle.
This was the basis for her first White House bid, but she was blindsided by Obama. He benefited not only from the beauty of his rhetoric, but for his opposition to the war in Iraq, a war she had backed as senator.
Again her baffling resilience showed. She swallowed her pride and served as his secretary of state, never giving up on her dream of serving as the first woman president, further burnishing her resume.
She was admired as an indefatigable diplomat, one who managed to rebuild America's reputation, that had been battered by the war she had backed.
The bones of her final defeat can now be seen in the tough primary she was forced to fight against Bernie Sanders, another previously unknown senator.
He had opposed the war, he opposed free trade. He represented opposition to Wall Street and Washington's elite. She was seen to embody it. Still the Democratic Party maintained its faith in her.
When Trump felled 16 professional contenders to become the Republican candidate, Clinton believed she could beat him, but knew it would be an ugly race. She managed to convince a majority of voters he was unqualified for the job. He, and congressional Republicans investigating her use of a private email server as secretary of state, managed to convince as many or more that she was untrustworthy.
And again her campaign was struck by the behaviour of men. FBI director James Comey shocked observers by announcing he would re-open an investigation into the emails, a re-investigation restarted because the estranged husband of her aide, Huma Abedin, had sent explicit messages to a girl on a computer the couple shared.
By midnight, at the Javits Centre in New York, many of her supporters were weeping, while others quietly left.
The results suggest there was more to it than this though, that Trump was right, that Sanders had been right too, that what people wanted was radical change, a president from the outside. "Drain the swamp," they chanted at Trump's rallies. And more chillingly, "Lock her up."
Last year when Clinton launched her campaign in blistering heat on Roosevelt Island in the Hudson River, three women wept with joy as they watched Clinton speak.
Many high-school classmates continued to believe in the candidate. "This is her time," Cath Burgess, 68, told Fairfax Media that afternoon. "It is her time."
It was not.