US election: Clinton poised to deliver on 240 years of promise

Hillary Clinton with Barack Obama and husband Bill at a rally in Philadelphia.

Madam President.

For 240 years, that has been the unspoken promise of America.

If anyone can grow up to be president, if all men — a phrase that surely includes women — are created equal, then a woman must one day occupy the White House.

And now the polls predict it.

The US — indeed the world — stands today on the cusp of an event of immense historical importance: the election, probably, of Hillary Rodham Clinton as the first female president.

And yet, when Clinton gave her final campaign speech in Pennsylvania yesterday, she hardly mentioned the moment.

Surely she knew the magnitude.

The bookies have her at four-to-one.

Yet it was as if she dared not to whisper, dared not jinx, the turning of a page that surely bears her name.

Clinton’s final speech included one well-worn nod to feminism: “If equal pay is playing the women’s card, then deal me in.”

In the main, she has run not with history, nor even with destiny in mind, but rather on experience and preparedness.

Clinton came to this race a known commodity. Her story is not new: a graduate of public schools, she has served her country as first lady, in the Senate and, more recently, as secretary of state.

No candidate has ever been more qualified.

Without question, the Oval Office is an aspiration to which Clinton has dedicated her life.

Here is the woman who, as a girl, wrote to NASA, asking how she might become an astronaut, only to be told that women could not be astronauts. Now, today, comes her real shot at the moon.

Clinton stands proudly on the shoulders of those women who came before her, including those who fought hard for the right of all American women to cast a ballot, and to run for office. She, more than anyone, understands that while the US has long claimed moral leadership in the world, when it comes to suffrage they’re in fact a little tardy.

Ireland, Iceland, India, Indonesia, even Australia, have been led by women, but not the great democracy.

Of course, if Clinton is now elected, she would become the most powerful woman in the world, ahead of Angela Merkel in Germany and Theresa May in Britain.

The most powerful man in the world, as of today, is likely to be China’s President, Xi Jinping.

This, then, is a true shattering of the old world, and the arrival of the new, and who will deliver the victory, if it comes?

Other women, particularly those over 50, who were there for the equal rights campaigns of the 1970s; who have been feminists since that meant bra-burning; who have longed for this day; but also much younger women — Millennials — who have grown up believing in equality and don’t see the world another way.

They are Clinton’s base.

They were there in 2008, when Clinton sought the Democratic nomination against a man — Barack Obama — determined to write his own name into the history books. They are here again, as Clinton runs against a flamboyant celebrity and casino mogul, Donald Trump.

The ways in which they loathe him can scarcely be counted.

Here is a man overheard saying of women: “Grab ’em by the pussy.” Who has threatened to see Clinton not in the White House but the Big House. Whose campaign slogan — drain the swamp — refers directly to Clinton and her retinue.

This is the man that Clinton, who celebrated her 69th birthday in October, must defeat in order to break through what she has described as the last, highest, hardest glass ceiling in the world.

Yet, for all her determination and experience, for all the money raised, for all the deals done, the lies told, and yes, for all the scandals covered up — victory is not assured.

The 2016 race for the White House has been a campaign blighted by biliousness — a bruising contest, as they say — but then they are never easy. It’s been vulgar at times, but so was Bill, at times, and while Hillary this morning has a clear lead, her team is clearly nervous. They would not be dragging Beyonce and Jay Z to the stage in these dying days if Clinton were not nervous.

On stage in Pennsylvania yesterday, Clinton acknowledged a crowd of a 100,000 people but were they there for her? Or to see Bruce Springsteen, or even Obama and his much better half, Michelle, stake her claim to a future campaign?

On stage, Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, told the crowd that she “could not wait” to cast a vote for her mother. The crowd cheered, but the nervousness was there, too. Clinton has stumbled, literally, on this road before, but surely not now, with victory so close she must be able to taste it.

Can this be the hour that a woman brings to life the soaring, second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal …?” Imagine it: that famous gallery of US presidents, all those portraits of Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy and Reagan flashing by and now, suddenly, a female face.

A mother. A grandmother.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, taking her place in history, and also in the White House, the first female president of the US.