It is the season of high danger for front-runners

In presidential politics, this is the High Risk Season, a danger zone for front-runners when the media attention is not on the inevitability of falling leaves but the possibility of falling stars.

All summer the story line was Hillary Clinton's steady-as-you-go campaign. After one debate or another, she was described as "commanding," "knowledgeable," "experienced." Now even Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson are pleading their case for the Republican nomination on the claim that they alone can beat Hillary.

This image of a candidate who's passed the presidential readiness test wooed more voters to her side. She's now leading the Democratic field by 33 points. But this hasn't endeared her to political reporters. The one reliable media bias, we know, is not pro-liberal or pro-conservative, pro-Democrat or pro-Republican. It is pro-knockdown-drag-out campaign.

Thus we now enter the season when the journalistic pack, including those who rail against pack journalism, howls in anxiety at the prospect of a front-runner loping to the finish line. The colors are changing and the headlines are, too. They now read: "Can Clinton Be Stopped?" "Can Clinton's 'Inevitability' Be Erased?"

Well, right, the race isn't over. The voting hasn't even begun. But maybe we can stop reading the maple leaves for a moment and take in a larger view of the landscape.

We are heirs and heiresses to a century of speculation on whether Americans would ever vote for a woman. When Hillary Clinton first entered the race, the story line had a pink border. Those same headlines asked and asked and asked: "Is the country ready for a woman president?"

It's pretty stunning that in less than a year, the question has morphed from whether a woman is "electable" to whether she's "stoppable." It's even more remarkable that Hillary is now seen less as the woman candidate than the establishment candidate.

I began noticing the de-gendering -- forgive the word -- of Hillary Clinton last March. About then, the right wing's favorite "radical feminist socialist" was becoming the left wing's "politics as usual." Now, as the High Risk Season opens, she's framed less for making history than for perpetuating a dynasty. After a millennium as political outsiders, how is it possible that the serious female contender is cast -- and even castigated -- as the insider? As Hillary would say, "Hello?"

So this is where Clinton is ... walking that line. While Obama gets praise for making history, she gets points for experience. When Edwards outflanks her on the left, this "polarizing figure" settles deeper into the comforting center. It's the best place for a woman in the general election.

But at the same time the media are clamoring for action -- Can Hillary Be Stopped? -- many Democratic primary voters are just plain clamoring. So there's some danger in typecasting the first woman as the old guard.

Hillary Clinton: politics as usual. Or maybe life as usual. First you struggle to get into the establishment and then you get dismissed as too establishment. There's got to be a touch of irony in this seasonal affective disorder. If, that is, any woman still dares to cackle.

© 2007, Washington Post Writers Group