INDIANAPOLIS

In his memoir, the legendary Elia Kazan wrote about directing Vivien Leigh in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” While he did not think that Leigh was a great natural actress, he was impressed that she would crawl through glass to get the role right.

Hillary Clinton may not be a great natural politician, but traveling across the country on her own Bus Named Desire, she has crawled through glass to get the role right.

She showed again with her squeaker win in Indiana that for many white working-class men, she is The Man  more tenacious and less concerned with the judgments of the tony set, economists and editorial writers. Talking up guns, going to the Auto Racing Hall of Fame, speaking from the back of pickup trucks and doing shots of populism with a cynicism chaser, Hillary emerged from a lifetime of government limos to bask as queen of the blue-collar prom.

Nobility is for losers.

Just as Obama spent his youth trying not to be threatening, so as not to unnerve whites, Hillary spent her life learning to be threatening so she could beat back challenges to her and her husband  from Republicans and from “bimbo eruptions” and now from a charmed younger rival.