Hillary Clinton was a leader who lusted. Not all leaders are lustful – in fact, most are not. Moreover, those who do lust crave different things. Clinton’s lust was for success. She had an unstoppable need to achieve.  

In our recent book, Leaders Who Lust: Power, Money, Sex, Success, Legitimacy, Legacy, we defined leaders who lust as having a “psychological drive that produces intense wanting, even desperately needing to obtain an object, or to secure a circumstance. When the object has been obtained, or the circumstance secured, there is relief, but only briefly, temporarily.” In other words, lust is an appetite that is insatiable, and leaders who lust are not ordinary. They are extra-ordinary, which is why, for good or ill, their impact is often significant.    

Hillary Clinton’s lust for success was lifelong. It – along of course with her intelligence and competence – explains why she was able to climb so high. Her lust similarly explains why she hung in for decades despite all the hatred hurled at her particularly. In a book she wrote after her shocking loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, What Happened, Clinton went public with her pain. “It’s not easy to be a woman in politics,” she wrote. “It can be excruciating, humiliating…it can be unbelievably cruel…. It hurts to be torn apart. It may seem like it doesn’t bother me to be called terrible names or have my looks mocked viciously, but it does.”

Clinton’s lust did not end because she ended it. It ended because it was ended for her. Not only did she not succeed, twice over she failed in her quest to become president. The first time, in 2008, she was bested by Barack Obama in the primaries. The second time by Trump – to the refrain of “Lock Her Up, Lock Her Up, Lock Her Up” – in the general election.

Fast forward five years – to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign for the White House. Hillary Clinton made a single important appearance in support of the Democratic ticket. At the (virtual) national convention in August she spoke six minutes from her home in New York. But apart from this courtesy, this formality, she was effectively invisible for the duration of Biden’s run.

Given the omnipresence, especially during the closing days of the campaign, of former president Barack Obama, former president Bill Clinton’s absence was also noteworthy. It though made sense. Post #MeToo his never-to-be forgotten relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky has curdled into political poison.

But Hillary Clinton is different. Why send her into exile?

Two explanations. First, nothing smacks of failure like failure. Fact is she failed to do what she wanted desperately to do, and she failed to do what Biden wanted desperately to do. Become president of the United States.

Second, Clinton is a woman. A woman who by 2008 had no interest in being vice president. She wanted, with every fiber of her being, to be president. She had already been first lady, had already been senator, and had already been secretary of state. What was left? Only the brass ring.

The specter of sexism lingers still. Lust for success in a man is one thing, lust for success in a woman is another. We are not saying that naked, unslakable ambition in a woman is intolerable, unacceptable. What we are saying is that lust of any sort in a woman is less tolerable, less acceptable than in a man, even now. Which is why Biden is headed to the White House – while Clinton has been hidden.