Sexism

One of the points almost sure to be made by Hillary supporters and possibly eventually the Clintons themselves is that the country was simply not ready for a female president. There is probably more truth to that than anyone in the punditocracy would be willing to admit. And of course Hillary isn't just any normal female politician, there is a lot of history and strong feelings about her and a tendency among the commentariot to really pile on when things are bad. Taking all this into account, it's hard to find justification for why the press was so eager to crown her the frontrunner months before the voting started but easy to understand why, once she slipped at that Philly debate, they were so relentless about keeping her down.