"What do you all think?" she asked Spence. "This is what you've been waiting for, for a long time."

"You know, Roy, they'll say a lot of things about our marriage." "Yeah." "What should we do about that?"

Spence told Clinton to tell the truth, according to First In His Class: A Biography Of Bill Clinton (1995), by David Maraniss. Tell the truth? How on earth could they tell the truth about Bill Clinton's sexual predations and win the White House? Instead, she chose implausible denials. Even after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in the White House itself, she attributed it to a "vast right-wing conspiracy". Why is this relevant? Because it indicates the scale of the political baggage she would bring to a presidential campaign as the Democratic nominee. Because it is an insight into the scale of the devil's bargain she entered into in her quest for power. Because she has tolerated the intolerable while presenting herself as a feminist. And because she has been engaged in a cover-up for 20 years.

The following is a list of women who have appeared in credible biographies or news reports. All, with one exception, have made on-the-record comments: Eileen Wellstone: as a 19-year-old student she lodged a complaint of sexual assault against Bill Clinton, in 1969 while he was at Oxford. She reconfirmed the incident to reporters in 1999. Elizabeth Ward Gracen: a former Miss America, she admitted she had sex with Clinton in 1982, when he was governor of Arkansas.

Sally Miller Perdue: a former Miss Arkansas, she had an affair with Clinton in 1983. Mary Jo Jenkins: the new biography by the Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein, A Woman In Charge, says Bill Clinton had a long affair with Jenkins.

Sharlene Wilson: told a grand jury she saw Clinton taking cocaine and has also said she saw him having sex at the Coachman's Inn in Arkansas when he was governor. Dolly Kyle Browning: wrote a memoir about her 14-year relationship with Clinton. Gennifer Flowers: said she had a 12-year affair with Clinton.

Carolyn Moffet: after meeting Clinton in 1979, said he exposed himself to her in a hotel room and asked for oral sex. Paula Jones: said that after she met Clinton on May 8, 1991, he exposed his erect penis and asked for oral sex.

Sandra Allen James: said Clinton pinned her against the wall and put his hand up her dress in 1991. Christy Zercher: a flight attendant, said Clinton fondled her breasts on a flight during the 1991 presidential campaign. Juanita Broaddrick: broke down on national television when describing an alleged sexual assault by Clinton in 1978. Wrote an open letter accusing Hillary of cover-ups.

Kathleen Willey: told CBS's 60 Minutes she was groped by President Clinton in the White House on November 29, 1993. Monica Lewinsky: had sexual trysts in the White House, about which President Clinton lied.

The list is not exhaustive. Now that Senator Clinton's campaign is in trouble, feminist dogmatists are arguing that it is because she is a woman. But it is her increasingly shrill campaign, her lapses in judgment and, above all, her inability to match the charisma of her Democratic opponent that have led to 11 consecutive defeats in the primaries. All this plus a fatigue with the Clintons' 30 years of seeking power. Her campaign has stayed afloat only thanks to the fractious relationship between blacks and Hispanics, who remain the only group still steadfast to her cause, by an overwhelming margin, in the run-up to this week's crucial Texas primary. The irony now is that the Clintons are fighting a fierce rearguard action to prevent the first black American from becoming president.

If Barack Obama loses the nomination because of the Clintons, the African-American vote will implode in November, and take the Democrats down with it. Senator Clinton's biggest problem is that she is sanctimonious. This is personified by the biography on her website, HillaryClinton.com, which describes her legal career as if she were Mother Teresa: "Hillary chose not to pursue offers from major law firms. Instead she followed her heart and a man named Bill Clinton to Arkansas ... Hillary ran a legal aid clinic for the poor when she first got to Arkansas and handled cases of foster care and child abuse. Years later, she organised a group called Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families ... Hillary continued to advocate for children, leading a taskforce to improve education in Arkansas through higher standards for schools and serving on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital, helping them expand and improve their services ... She also continued her legal career as a partner in a law firm."

I highlight the last sentence because it is so carefully misleading. The biography devotes 95 per cent of her legal career to her public advocacy work even though she spent just 10 months in public advocacy and 15 years as a corporate lawyer. She worked for the Rose Law Firm, the top commercial firm in Arkansas, from 1976 to 1991. She earned more than her husband. She also served on the board of Wal-Mart, one of the most anti-union corporations in America. That's why Obama has begun to lace his speeches with barbs about Wal-Mart. Hillary Clinton's problem is not her gender but her character.