If Hillary Clinton wins Super Tuesday, she's got the White House

In all likelihood, the United States is about to elect a female president – a political first of dramatic, historic proportions. But no one is celebrating.

Today’s “Super Tuesday”, when a third of Democrat delegates (who select their presidential candidate) are up for grabs, is likely to see Hillary Rodham Clinton shaking off the Left-wing terrier that is Bernie Sanders and once again become her party’s nominee presumptive.

If she does, and goes on to secure that nomination, she will be on the threshold of the White House. For while a lot has been written and said about Donald Trump, almost every poll sees Clinton trumping Trump in a one-to-one showdown. Such is his toxicity on the national stage that increasingly desperate Republican grandees have even discussed how they can stop him. They probably can’t.

• Hillary Clinton is relying on black women voters and she knows it

Today then, could go a long way to ushering into office the next President Clinton. That would mark a huge turn around after a shaky few months, blighted in no small part by the gender politics that were expected to help her. In New Hampshire, where she lost by an eye-watering 22 points, women proved decisive in her defeat. Some 55 per cent plumped for Sanders, including 82 per cent of under-30s; this despite the entreaties of the feminist Gloria Steinem and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to vote for Clinton specifically because she is a woman.

Such appeals proved counterproductive. Many expressed irritation at being urged to vote for a candidate on the grounds of her gender. And so the alarmed Clinton camp came up with a rescue plan which involved not referring at all to her status as the first person without a Y-chromosome to be favourite for the White House. As the contest has moved south into states with high unemployment and large black populations, her pitch has been that the party cannot afford to elect a socialist candidate like Sanders who has limited appeal to the wider electorate. It worked in South Carolina on Friday, and, if the polls are correct, looks likely to deliver today too.

And then will anyone cheer the fact that after 240 years and 44 male commanders-in-chief, it could finally – finally – be the turn of a woman? Unlikely. Instead there will probably just be weary relief that the Democrats have a candidate capable of bringing the Trump juggernaut to a halt.

The contrast could not be more stark with eight years ago, when a young senator from Chicago, Barack Obama, was seeking to become the first black president. Under his “Yes We Can!” banner, an extraordinary coalition emerged in support of a candidate whose inspiration was not just the colour of his skin but the hope he represented for a fairer future.

Black Americans make up around 16 per cent of the American population. Women are just under 51 per cent. Yet Obama’s victory somehow has come to be seen as of greater historic importance than Clinton’s would be now. The prospect of a first female president should be thrilling. Instead the reaction to her is distinctly tepid.

This collective shrug could, of course, be seen as a positive thing, a triumphant sign that in a post-feminist age voters don’t really care about gender politics. But that’s just not true. Men and women in America don’t have equal life chances. Women still earn 79 cents for every dollar made by a man. There are four women CEOs in America’s top 500 companies; female legislators make up 19 per cent of the House of Representatives and 20 per cent of the Senate, placing the US in 75th place in the world league table of female representation. Gender is still crucial to voters.

And not just within the confines of the United States. Across the planet, only 12 out of 206 recognised sovereign states are led by women; so a female leader of the free world would be huge, both symbolically and, potentially, practically. Why, then, does the response to the growing likelihood that a woman will occupy the Oval Office in 10 months’ time feel so muted?

It’s the candidate, stupid. Hillary Clinton has more baggage than a jumbo jet, from her priapic husband Bill to her decades at the heart of the American political machine in an era when outsiders are in vogue.

There is also the shadow of Obama; his failure, as many Americans see it, to deliver on all that hope he promised means they are wary of getting starry-eyed over a politician again. So there is no adulation this time around, no Andy Warhol-style posters of Clinton, few bumper stickers or badges with her name on. What little excitement and celebration remains in US politics has been sucked up by the anti-politicians – Sanders and Trump. Clinton’s anticipated triumph today will be a joyless one.

And yet, bar miracle or disaster, come election day it will be her name on the Democratic ballot. And on January 20 2017, as she dances in Bill’s arms at the 10 or more balls held to honour her inauguration, she won’t give a damn.

Because more than anyone, Hillary Clinton, the ultimate political survivor, knows that joy and hope are ephemeral; and power is all about what you do with it.