Hillary Clinton will be the next president. It is that simple.

Many progressives, who once liked the idea, are second guessing themselves and the conservative heartland of America, doubting that Hillary can win because she is a woman, a former First Lady, a proud feminist and so on ad nauseum. Yet it is precisely because of all this perceived ‘baggage’ that Hillary will be an irresistible presidential candidate.

She is already on first name terms with most of America. She has that thing called brand power. Everyone knows Hillary - and this alone places Senator Clinton ahead of her rivals for the presidency. The right wingers have already gone over her life, raking for mud - various hacks have accused her of everything from murder to lesbianism. Whatever wild accusation her opponents care to sling, Americans have heard it all before and none of it stuck last time. These attackers have been termed ‘Hillary-Haters’, but nothing they do or say is sensational anymore. Their wild accusations and conspiracy theories only make her look even more reasonable and ‘middle American’ than her detractors.

Hillary has the all-American success story down pat. Born in the mid-west, her career spans the geographic ‘Red-Blue’ state divide, from Arkansas where she practiced as a lawyer and high profile governor’s wife, to New York where she is currently a Senator. Hillary also has proven staying power - she increased her electoral margin in New York in 2006 with an impressive 70% of the vote, even winning over districts with traditionally Republican voting histories.

Her connection with Bill Clinton is also far more positive than negative. For a start, being the wife of a president is the perfect entree into high political office. Skeptics point out that American has never had a female president before. Yet Hillary has the familial connection to the presidency, through her husband that has frequently eased conservative societies into female leadership. Witness the Gandhi family in India, or any number of other countries where women have taken up the political mantle of husbands, fathers or brothers.

Conservative societies are far more open to female leadership than many progressives think. In this way, Hillary’s presidency does not really challenge patriarchy at all, except of course by setting down a precedent for future women to follow. Nancy Pelosi has already set such a precedent as Speaker of the House of Representatives. In a Westminster system like Australia, Pelosi, as leader of the House Majority, would be the prime minister. Her success in defeating George W. Bush’s Republicans in 2006 puts paid to any residual doubts about America’s willingness to elect female leaders.

The 2006 Democratic groundswell, which in Australian electoral terms would translate into a landslide of mammoth proportions, also illustrated another factor. That is the overwhelming distaste Americans now have for the Bush presidency. This has translated into a rosy glow of nostalgia around not only 'former U.S. President Al Gore', but also the Clintons. The Clinton presidency, once so tarnished by Bill’s infidelity that Al Gore refused to have Bill by his side during the 2000 election, is now looking a lot better in light of what came after.

Some progressives also worry that the familial connection will prove a liability in another way. Democratic hopeful Barack Obama has already alluded to this with his calls for a ‘fresh start’. Americans may well have tired in advance of the Bush/Clinton duopoly. After all, if Hillary were elected and served two full terms, it would mean that America would have been ruled by the Bush/Clinton families for twenty years continuously. This may be an unhealthy development for a democratic republic, but it is certainly not unusual. America after all, is now an imperial as much as democratic republic, akin to its celebrated model - the Roman Republic. As that ancient republic morphed into an imperial system, so too did its government become a family affair. Empires can also do worse than to be ruled by families - the fatal flaw in Rome after all was its susceptibility not to hereditary monarchy so much as to military monarchy. America has not quite entered that territory yet, though the ‘idiot son’ phase is often a dangerous doorway onto that precipice.

But this also brings us to the advantages of the familial connection for Hillary. Americans, after all, may be both democrats and republicans, yet their sense of nationalism and national identity is also firmly rooted in the symbols and ideology of the family. In this respect they are very similar to their other Anglo-Saxon cousins who maintain a royal family at the symbolic apex of their democracies. Hillary Clinton has an aura of destiny about her that elevates her to the status of a ‘royal’, just as the Kennedy family has maintained an aura of political destiny about itself. A sense of destiny is a powerful force in politics.

Hillary has been accused of being ambitious - a supposed problem only because she is a woman - yet her familial link to the White House makes her bid appear less to do with ambition, and more to fulfilling an allotted destiny. In this narrative, Hillary can not really resist her duty to be president. Numerous citizen initiated ‘draft Hillary’ campaigns have even given this sense of duty and destiny a democratic edge. When Hillary finally announced she was running for the White House, it was greeted with a sense of relief, and a sense that this was how things should be. In academic terms, this is what we would call charisma - when a leader appears so natural as to transcend even ambition itself. Everyone expected Hillary to run, and yet it was big news when she did at last announce it - that is charisma.

Hillary has become more than a person. Her presidential bid began with her personality, but has morphed into a movement. For all the right-wingers who hate her because she was a visible, political and activist woman married to a progressive president, there are legions who will defend her honour. Bill Clinton, after all, was not only her husband but a rather poor one who let her down. What Bill surrendered that day, the people took up as her champions. The inversion of the relationship, with ‘Bill as First Lady’ will only add to the relish with which many Americans would vote for a Hillary presidency.

Beyond all the symbols and the hype, the fact also remains that Hillary has laid down the ground work for political victory as no other candidate has. Symbols and messages are powerful, but they are not everything. Hillary's fund raising abilities and networks of volunteers and donors also make her the most logical choice if the Democrats want to win back the presidency. Hillary has worked as an advocate for the people, a governor's wife, a First Lady and a Senator. Whatever the status of her husband, she has climbed every rung in the ladder to the White House in her own right – and if she doesn't make it to the top after all that then the message will be that no woman can.

And what about Barack Obama? As this year's civil rights march in Selma highlighted, he is young and idealistic when compared to the experienced and savvy Clinton. In this respect he may make the ideal choice for vice-president. Some commentators have again ruled this out because 'America would never vote for two minorities – a woman and a Black man'. That, of course, could not be more ridiculous. Women are not, for a start, a minority, and with African Americans constitute a clear majority. A glimpse at the Hillary and Obama cheer squads will also reveal that their appeal transcends both race and gender. Obama has been accused of 'not really being Black' in the same way Hillary's femininity has come under attack from the patriarchal Right. Yet those elements of their identity are precisely the ingredients that make them most charismatic – the ability not only to personify their race and gender, but to cross the boundaries that limit them.

At this rate, only Oprah Winfrey could save the Republicans.