Eight years ago if you had wondered who might be the first African American president, the consensus might have turned toward Colin Powell, although many would have also said that this person "does not exist" and that it might be decades or more before we had a serious Black contender for the job. Now look where we are.

Nobody knows what the future may bring. There are plenty of women politicians out there and it may be that one of them catches fire at the right time and is smart and tough enough to win the job.

HRC didn't lose because she was a woman. She lost because, she ran a poor campaign, made blunder after blunder and couldn't close the deal. If she couldn't win after starting the race with every advantage -- name recognition, money, party support, political organization -- then she doesn't deserve it.

Very few people ever become president--in fact only 43 in the last 200+ years! I'm not really concerned with what sex, orientation, color, age, height, or shape our president is. I don't expect any of my children to become president (not the girls and not the boy either).

I want a president who will lead our country forward and work on the issues that are important to me. Some of those issues affect my family directly and some only indirectly or not at all, but action is what I care about. I don't care what the president looks like, only what action he or she takes.

I'm not holding my breath for a president to be any version of non-straight-white-Christian-male, but I am holding my nose until we get rid of the current occupant.

that no contenders were even mentioned! if Obama is elected and presides over a successful administration, his possible veep Kathleen Sebelius might be the first woman in the White House. If his admin is not so successful, there are any number of Republican governors with the record and the drive to make it to Washington. Women governors, i mean.

Won't be President, but at least she gets to enjoy that Senate seat compliments of her husband's reflected glory. Boy that woman has it rough ...

Kathleen Sebelius will only be 68. She could very well make a run for it. Other than her age, she fits quite a few of your criteria. And look for any number of female, Democratic governors to be elected in the next 6 years who could then take a shot in 2016, 2020 or 2024. Don't need to be especially young to see any of those.

Back in 2000, who would have put an obscure State Senator from Illinois on anyone's short list for future Presidential Contenders in 2008?

A LOT can happen in 8 years.

Will have to be able to tell what the current political climate is like and react accordingly - while maintaining strength enough to vote in the best interests of the country, not just for what is popular.

Thus take Hillary:

Hillary ran as "tough" when "tough has been discredited as 90% pose 10% chicken. Her war rhetoric is the precise opposite to what many Democratic voters are looking for, and her war vote - taken due to political pressure without even reading the NIE (Which symbolises that the facts didn't even matter to her when she made the vote) all show the precise opposite traits as to those which would have led her to the Whitehouse.

Before Obama spoke at the 2004 Democratic Convention, many analysts might have said it would be generations before a black man was elected as a nominee for either party. Assuming Obama gets the nomination this time around, he will be the first black Presidential candidate in modern history ... as with Ferraro, previous attempts by black people to run for a nomination have been soundly rejected. After Jackson tired in 84 and 88, it took some 20 years for the next black man, Al Sharpton, to take a crack at the Democratic nomination, and Sharpton's run was hardly a success. I think if any analyst had predicted in 2003 that by 2008, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination would be a black man, that analyst would have been considered "hopeful" at best, and delusional at worst. Yet, here we are in 2008 with what looks like a race between McCain and Obama.

Given that, I'm not sure how much weight to put behind this notion that "if not Clinton, then who, and when?" I think there are LOTS of good female candidates out there, with more experience than Clinton, and less baggage, who could make a more credible run for the job. That we may not be able to see them today isn't really an issue to me ... who would have predicted, in 2003, that Obama would be the first black candidate for President in modern times? We may not be able to see the equivalent woman from today's perspective, but that doesn't mean she's not out there, and it doesn't mean we won't see her in 2012 or 2016 IMO. If Hillary is Sharpton from 2004, a candidate who doesn't make it to the nomination, then who is the female Barack?

most commenters so far missed the argument make in the article.

This isn't about a lack of capable woman politicians. There are quite some. The Point is they will not be considered viable enough for the amount of investment, political as well a financial, to get a successful campaign started.

Outside of Obama fantasy circles, there is a very serious majority that understands why Clinton fails. Some of them like that. Some resent it. But the collective wisdom taken from this election will be that women can not win. They run against the misogynist crowd, which, in political terms, includes a suprising ly high portion of women, and there is not enough gender specific solidarity to counter that. And she runs against the press and tv where even outrageously misogynist attacks are commonplace and permissible.

If a nobody like Obama, without any organizational backing and a platform worth mentioning can kick a clear favorite like Clinton out, this kind of favorites will not attract investors any more.

So, yes, Sebelius might be there, but there will be no campaign and she will not run.