Perhaps in the general race or sex is a disadvantage, but nowhere nearly as much in the primaries and even less in the polling. We're Democrats, we'd *LOVE* to put a woman and/or another POC into office.

But there is no room in this game for anything other than a nearly perfectly run campaign.

'Ground game', logistics, organization, is not as visible as skin, nowhere nearly as interesting as race and gender, people's eyes glaze over...but it's the candidate with the best organization that wins, it's the campaign that puts the feet on the ground, the money on target and gets the candidate in front of the crucial groups at the crucial time that wins. As good as Obama was, his organization just simply outperformed McCain's and Romney;s- more phone calls, more advertising where and when it counted!

In an evenly ran race, with both campaigns functioning at optimum, then charisma matters, but I think it was ground game that did her in.