Hillary Clinton's historical 2008 presidential run provides an intriguing case for scholars of women and politics who wish to apply the knowledge about women candidates and officeholders culled from other levels to the US presidency. Within this intriguing case, however, is the frustration that her 2008 efforts are a singular, and in several respects extraordinary, case. In Hillary Clinton's Race for the White House, Regina Lawrence and Melody Rose confront this conundrum by attempting to theorize about and analyze Clinton's historic campaign in light of existing research on the US presidential primary process, campaigns and media bias, and gender politics. Their analysis largely succeeds in striking a balance between placing the Clinton case in a larger theoretical framework and highlighting her uniqueness as a test case of the interaction between gender and US presidential campaigns. The result of their work is a book that is informative for scholars of presidential campaigns and gender, as well as a detailed case study appropriate for students in political science.

Lawrence and Rose begin by arguing that understanding Clinton's campaign must involve the interaction among three variables: the role of gender in politics, the ways the media cover presidential campaigns, and Clinton's own strategic decisions about her campaign within the context of the 2008 election. For the first variable, the role of gender in politics, the authors consider the debate over whether and to what extent Clinton's campaign encountered sexism. Particularly for the presidency, they contend, stereotypical expectations of women candidates clash with the conception of this political office that is “steeped in masculinity” (p. 34). Whereas women candidates for lower offices may be able to benefit from the gender stereotypes, women candidates for the presidency must reconcile their femininity with the “toughness” (p. 37) expected of presidential candidates, as well as their status as a different candidate with calls for equality for women in politics.

Using a qualitative analysis of Clinton's campaign strategy and media reaction to her campaign, Lawrence and Rose conclude that on this first variable of gender, Clinton struggled with creating a campaign that successfully addressed these challenges. Specifically, they note that her campaign, predicated on her experience and qualification for office, shifted between using explicitly gendered cues to attract women candidates and running advertisements that focused on “toughness” and separation from traditional stereotypes of women. In this way, they argue, her campaign failed to establish consistent gender cues and invited criticism (for instance, grumbling concerning her feelings about playing the “gender card” in October 2007 [p. 123]) from the media. Although this criticism was to some degree unfounded, as the media held her to stereotypes she did not necessarily intend to fulfill, it also created mixed expectations for the media as to whether she should have been characterized as a typical frontrunner or a “first” woman presidential front-runner (p. 130).

The authors argue, secondly, that media coverage of Clinton intertwined with these gendered expectations of her campaign. In an extensive analysis of mainstream newspapers and nightly television news, Lawrence and Rose find that Clinton was not subject to systematic and sustained sexism during the campaign. Unlike past studies of other women presidential candidates, such as Elizabeth Dole, they conclude that Clinton received newspaper coverage consonant with her status as the early front-runner. Though much of this coverage was negative, the authors argue convincingly that the negativity in the mainstream media was largely a product of her front-runner status and the media's desire to reinforce “horse-race” and “game-frame” themes in their presidential election coverage (p. 149). Using an analysis of new media, however, they conclude that Clinton faced extensive and even offensive sexist rhetoric outside of the mainstream media. Bloggers and online videos and commentary subjected her to overt sexual references, fashion criticism, and critiques of being simultaneously too manly and too feminine (pp. 202–3). Although the mainstream media also made comments about Clinton's appearance or emotions to a greater extent than for male candidates (similar to past research on women candidates in other offices), Lawrence and Rose conclude that the mainstream media largely stayed away from the explicit commentary found in the blogosphere.

Finally, the authors contend that a third important factor, Clinton's uniqueness in her own campaign and the context of the 2008 election, is relevant to understanding her race. They question whether the US presidential primary process in 2008 was a “gendered game” (p. 181). Both Clinton's front-runner status and the media focus on the horse race garnered her early negative attention during the primaries, but her decision to remain in the race as her likelihood of winning diminished created an increasingly gendered commentary regarding her campaign within the mainstream media. Lawrence and Rose argue that the “death motif” (p. 196) used to describe the last days of her campaign became a gendered call for her to leave the race because of its relentless focus on her potential exit as the story line. Although the reality of the unusual 2008 nomination contest justified some discussion concerning when any candidate should leave the race, the authors argue that the extreme focus on her exit was unlike anything a male candidate would have faced and ultimately colored the complete interpretation of her campaign.

Hillary Clinton's Race for the White House offers new insights into this singular case that has already garnered a substantial amount of research attention over the last few years. Foremost, the authors' analysis of gender and new media leaves the reader simultaneously intrigued and disgusted. The examples of the blogosphere that they cite are so extreme—for example, references to a YouTube video of Clinton and Obama in a sexual act—that a researcher of women and politics could question women's ability to navigate this aspect of modern campaigning, while other studies note, for instance, that women win at the same rate as men (e.g. Barbara Burrell, A Woman's Place Is in the House: Campaigning for Congress in the Feminist Era, 1994), the clearly gendered and unfettered content of the new media, along with its increased relevance to presidential politics, is an example of how the underlying bias against a women presidential candidate found in other studies (e.g. Matthew J. Streb et al., “Social Desirability Effects and Support for a Female American President,” Public Opinion Quarterly 72 [2008]: 76–89) emerges in an unregulated medium. Similarly, the authors' careful distinction between negativity about Clinton's candidacy, based in media traditions such as horserace coverage rather than in gendered bias, is an advance in our understanding of women candidates. Although the horse race can be gendered, as they note, it also makes researchers of women and politics rethink the extent to which negativity about women candidates is based in the conventions of modern reporting, rather than in gendered beliefs about women candidates.

Lawrence and Rose, however, do not entirely resolve the conundrum that results from using Clinton's presidential run as an example of women presidential candidates. While they note, and try to account for, the fact that her public persona as a former First Lady and part of the Bill Clinton administration affected her campaign, their analysis cannot resolve the tension between this persona and gendered behavior against women candidates more generally. That is, the authors face the same problem that most scholarly work on Clinton faces: We cannot entirely determine how much of her loss as a woman candidate is attributable to Hillary Clinton as a candidate or to Hillary Clinton as a woman candidate. The authors are not unrealistic about their case and they fully acknowledge this problem. However, one is left slightly dissatisfied with the potential for applicability of some of these findings, such as the irate nature of the blogosphere or the negative focus on Clinton's early campaign, to future work on women's presidential candidacies. Nevertheless, Lawrence and Rose offer an interesting and thorough analysis of this campaign that should prove a useful case study for scholars of women and politics and the media in presidential campaigns.