Even the application of her crown lacked luster.
Hillary Clinton, the ethically challenged former senator and secretary of state, learned Monday she had amassed enough delegates to give her the Democratic nomination for president of the United States when several superdelegates committed to her campaign (or an extra delegate was found from the weekend Puerto Rico primary, or both).
That took the shine off any wins she had in Tuesday's presidential primaries and exposed a little further the party's complicated nominating process that has angered so many of the party faithful this election year.
As if to add tarnish to the crown of the first woman expected to be nominated for president by a major party in U.S. history, and on the same day The Associated Press determined she had the requisite vote count, it was announced her brother-in-law, Roger Clinton, had been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.
Imagine, if you can, the phone call that likely ensued between the former White House first couple when the news emerged. The former first lady's famous verbal rage probably was not rated G.
Those Clintons - always making it interesting.
However, Sen. Bernie Sanders, primary opponent of the presumptive candidate, says he has no plans to concede because the superdelegates - unpledged delegates who are elected leaders, party officials or former top office-holders - can change their choice all the way up to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July.
"We're going to keep fighting until the last vote is counted," Kristen Elliott, a Sanders supporter from California, told The Associated Press.
This year's nominating process, of course, was to have been a cakewalk for Clinton, who was expected to have a similar ride to the nomination in 2008 before upstart candidate Sen. Barack Obama toppled her. But this time around, at her campaign kickoff in New York City last June, her mantle for 2016 had been readied. All she needed to do, the storyline went, was to select her cabinet.
Well, a funny thing happened on the way to her coronation.
Not only was her family's foundation exposed for taking contributions from countries with which Clinton dealt while she was secretary of state, but she was revealed to have used an illegal and unsecured email server to send and receive confidential material while she was the nation's top diplomat.
And it turned out she wasn't much of a primary candidate, with her speeches rote and passionless, her campaign appearances scripted and controlled, and her positions on the issues increasingly left of the American public.
Sanders, meanwhile, a socialist running a pie-in-the-sky campaign that attracted millennials used to taking and Democrats unmoved by Clinton and fearful of her Wall Street ties, battled her for every delegate and made her spend valuable campaign money against him rather than in the general election.
In almost any given election year, with an unpopular president of her party in office, with a tepid economy losing steam and with the country having lost favor around the world, Clinton might be expected to lose in a November landslide.
But the former first lady has one thing going for her. She'll be facing in the general election Republican Donald Trump, a businessman and former reality television host who manages to alienate a new group of voters at least once a week.
Even given that, Trump has come out on top of several national polls matching the two and is within the margin of error behind Clinton in the Real Clear Politics average of polls between the pair.
The onetime New York senator may be wondering what she has to do to catch a break since many say she has felt owed high office for supporting her husband during his impeachment process in 1998-1999.
In reality, though, she has brought the tough sledding on herself, having obfuscated through the years on questions regarding the likes of "Filegate," "Travelgate," the missing Rose Law firm records and her cattle futures while she was in the White House and the Benghazi tragedy when she was secretary of state.
Left-leaning columnists Cokie and Steven Roberts recently referred to Clinton as one of the most experienced candidates ever to seek the presidency. While that is not even close to the truth regarding her credentials, she is certainly experienced when it comes to questionable actions.
And now, warts and all, this Goldwater-Girl-turned-hard-left-liberal will have her longed-for moment in front of the voters.