WASHINGTON - A year ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, was joshing about whether she could appoint her husband secretary of state when she became U.S. 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 so many twists that close observers might have needed a chiropractor to follow it. And now Clinton, once the instant favorite in a crowded field of candidates, 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 cozy 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 with solid credentials.
"I'm in to win," Clinton proclaimed. And she had the money to back up her bravado.
"I don't think anyone can stop her," John Catsimatidis, a New York businessman and member of Clinton's finance team, trumpeted in February 2007. "She's unstoppable; she's got such a machine."
Clinton, intent on keeping 2000 nominee Al Gore out of the race, seemed to regard all other rivals as "Lilliputians," says Democratic pollster Peter Hart
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.
But it was Obama, not Edwards, who emerged as the anti-Clinton.
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, back 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 that 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 that he was not to be discounted.
He matched Clinton almost dollar for dollar in the first three months of 2007, and breezed right past her in the next quarter -- raising US$33 million to her $27 million. By year's end, both had raised more than $100 million and blown through at least $80 million, muscular figures that no other Democrat could touch.
"That really changed the whole tenor of the race to becoming more of a two-person contest than a coronation," said Anthony Corrado, a campaign finance expert at Colby College in Maine.
Clinton did her best to maintain the illusion of inevitability nonetheless.
In July, she dismissed Obama as "irresponsible and frankly naive" on foreign policy.
In September, she ran the gantlet of five Sunday talk shows in one day, working in the phrase "When I'm president" at least seven times.
As recently as November, she calmly told an interviewer that despite Obama's surprisingly strong challenge, "it will be me."
Late into the fall, there were plenty of believers in a Clinton juggernaut.
"If this were a wedding, we'd be at the 'speak now or forever hold your peace' part," Steve McMahon, a former Dean adviser, said of Clinton's strength in October.
But soon there were signs of trouble for her.
An internal campaign memo had surfaced the previous May in which aides urged Clinton to bypass the leadoff caucuses in Iowa because it was her "consistently weakest state." Clinton disavowed the idea and worked hard all fall for an Iowa win, but the memo rang true. She was walloped with a third-place showing in Iowa, surpassed by both Obama and Edwards.
"Years from now," Obama promised his Iowa supporters, "you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment. This was the place where America remembered what it means to hope."
His Iowa victory propelled him like a slingshot into New Hampshire, where the only question seemed to be how big his victory would be.
Clinton didn't buy it, and neither did the public.
With her candidacy on the ropes, tough-as-nails Clinton let loose her emotions. Choking back tears the day before the primary, Clinton spoke from the heart about the meaning of the presidential race. In the process, she softened her remote image and zinged Obama along the way.
"You know, this is very personal for me," she told voters in a coffee shop. "Some of us are right, and some of us are not. Some of us are ready, and some of us are not."
It was a powerful moment, played over and over on TV.
When the New Hampshire results came in, Clinton was the newest comeback kid, Obama the underdog once again.
"I found my own voice," Clinton declared.
Then she overplayed her hand, or rather, her husband.
Heading into a difficult South Carolina contest, Bill Clinton ramped up the anti-Obama rhetoric he'd first unleashed in New Hampshire.
The ex-president's rancorous words -- criticizing Obama's positions on the Iraq war as a "fairy tale" and complaining that the Obama campaign had put out a "hit job" on him -- were a distasteful counterpoint to Obama's lofty message.
Obama, for his part, took the criticism as a source of pride. "It means I might win this thing," he said.
Win he did in South Carolina. And the money came pouring in.
Obama collected a stunning US$36 million in January, compared with US$14 million 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."
Instead they traded states, victory for victory, on Feb. 5, and neither came close to touching the tape.
And from there, it was all Obama, all the time, rolling up 11 straight primary and caucus victories in the past three weeks.
Clinton responded by moving the finish line -- and raising her own boatload of cash. She collected US$35 million in February but was surpassed yet again by Obama's fundraising.
Now Clinton is pinning her hopes on victories Tuesday in Ohio and Texas, where she once led in polls by a wide margin.
But the race has tightened in both states, and Clinton for the first time has lost the lead that she has held in national polls since Day One.
The news just gets worse for her. Two weeks ago, she was up by 16 points in Pennsylvania, which votes April 22. A poll this week showed the race at Clinton 49, Obama 43.
With every victory, more voters have given Obama a closer look.
"The person who wins homecoming queen always looks a lot better the following week walking around campus," said Hart, the pollster.
"My cautionary note," he added, "is that it ain't over. You always think the surprise you've seen is the last surprise."
"If she wins Texas and Ohio, we'll be talking very differently on Wednesday."
