(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-12 09:53

By that thinking, the notion of inevitability had been turned on its head. Maybe he was the chosen one all along.

Then Obama's halo fell in some mud. She fiercely exploited his missteps, criticized him in ways sure to delight Republican ad writers in the fall and - lest anyone miss the alpha female point - downed some beer at a bar and chased it with a shot of the hard stuff.

She was still, by all appearances, in it to win it. Burp.

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That's what she said at the start. "I'm in to win."

In embarking on a historic campaign to become the first female president, she faced the untested Obama and a field of well-regarded veterans who, for all their qualifications, did not make the pulse race.

"She's unstoppable," John Catsimatidis, a New York businessman and member of Clinton's finance team, said in February 2007. "She's got such a machine."

Even Obama seemed to believe in the Clinton juggernaut.

A big crowd draw even before he became a candidate, he cautioned people not to make too much of the excitement he was generating as a fabulous speaker on his own historic mission - to be the first black president.

"The novelty's going to wear off," he said.

On one Sunday in September, Clinton used the phrase "When I'm president" at least seven times on the talk shows.

"If this were a wedding, we'd be at the 'speak now or forever hold your peace' part," Steve McMahon, a former Howard Dean adviser, said of Clinton's position in October.

"It will be me," she said confidently in November.

Even before that, back when she was dismissing him as a policy lightweight who was "irresponsible and frankly naive" on foreign affairs," he was showing he was not to be taken lightly.

He raised almost as much money as Clinton in the first quarter of 2007, then surpassed her the next quarter. Both left the rest of the field far behind.

Finally came the Iowa caucuses, and a rude shock for Clinton.

She had campaigned hard in Iowa despite being advised to skip it because it was her "consistently weakest state." Clinton finished third behind Obama and John Edwards.

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