In 2008, Hillary Clinton attempted the unprecedented feat of becoming the first female president of the United States. During the initial campaign, it was clear the country wasn't ready for a different gender at the helm. Instead, voters decided to award the position to Barack Obama, the nation's first black president. Quietly, Clinton's pursuit was crushed. There would yet be no breaking of that glass ceiling. It was obvious that the party asked that she take her place in line and look to the future.

By 2016, the "inevitable" Hillary, who had patiently waited for her proper turn, looked like she would be victorious. In the end, a strange mixture of inside and outside scandals and influence (her own email server and an unbeatable opponent, to name a few) led to her election night downfall. We've been told she'll not run for office again.

The Democratic field of 2020 candidates is crowded, to say the least. While former Vice President Joe Biden has been at the top of the polls since the start, others are gaining some ground. One of them is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., whose numbers have improved in recent weeks. Warren is the highest-polling female candidate. But even with her current momentum, Biden is still ahead by double digits.

Warren will not become president.

This may be confusing given the gendered wounds of the past, but a shaken Democratic Party seems to have exchanged making feminist history for the main goal of defeating President Trump. When it comes to 2020 candidates, Biden's name recognition, connection to Obama, and efforts to appear more moderate on the issues are a better bet than another woman. And so, the party that is constantly chiding Republicans for being sexist appears to be reverting back to the safety of what has worked for them in the past: another male candidate. A recent poll suggests this trend in the "party of diversity."

"A full 20 percent of Democratic and independent men who responded to the survey said they agreed with the sentiment that women are “less effective in politics than men.” And while 74 percent of respondents claimed they were personally comfortable with a female president, only 33 percent believed their neighbors would be comfortable with a woman in the Oval Office. Nearly two out of every five Democratic and independent voters (39 percent) said they believed a female candidate would have a harder time running against Trump than a male candidate would."

As they desperately look for an answer to the Trump question, Democrats are setting aside the desire to make 2020 about breaking that famed glass ceiling, too. This time, they just want a clean win.

Warren may be a current trend, but her campaign is rife with problems, and none of them is related to her biological makeup. Not only does she come across as too academic and lecturing while in front of an audience, as David Axelrod said, but her policy-heavy campaign is pure nonsense.

.@noahcrothman: "God bless Elizabeth Warren for coming out with a policy-oriented campaign. We get to talk about issues rather than red meat. That's wonderful. The problem with her big ideas is a lot of them are awful." https://t.co/M26rZngc0X — David Rutz (@DavidRutz) June 17, 2019

If Democratic voters are placing any of their faith in Warren as a history-making female who takes down the GOP, they should prepare themselves for a loss. The window to elect a female president seems to have passed for the time being. It will certainly come again, but not now when Trump is their opponent.

Many on the left side of the aisle will continue to chide Republicans for not getting "with the times" and injecting more gender diversity into their ranks. Meanwhile, the minority party will praise the female candidates in their individual quests to become the nominee even though they know that selecting any one of them would be a massive gamble, and one they can't take. If there's anything the Democrats don't want, it's to play their weakest card against their toughest foe.

This discovery of reemerging sexism in the Democratic Party is laughable to those who have been watching. The "virtue" of placing appearance over substance may bring a brief sense of pride, but in the long run, it's a losing strategy. Now a party that chose a female last time is going in reverse and desperately trying to make sense of things before November 2020 arrives and it's too late.

Kimberly Ross (@SouthernKeeks) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog and a columnist at Arc Digital.