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After striding surefooted through the foothills of the Democratic presidential contest, Hillary Clinton’s frontrunning campaign has spent the past week tripping itself up.

The mis-steps began last Wednesday with one wobbly answer in a television debate – on whether to allow illegal immigrants drivers’ licences. Mrs Clinton’s response, in all its varied forms, has raised fresh questions about her candidacy.

Her opponents ask if she is honest. Her supporters suggest she is being attacked because she is a woman. Critics question a tactic of “playing the victim”.

Her campaign appears confused as to whether she is standing on a feminist platform or not.

Democrats, desperate to reclaim the White House, ask themselves: is she electable?

A clutch of opinion polls over the past two days suggest that her support nationally among Democratic voters has ebbed from a high of more than 50 per cent to the low to mid 40s.

And, while she maintains a strong – if reduced lead – over her rivals for the nomination, the aura of inevitability surrounding her candidacy has been significantly diminished.

One poll in New Hampshire, a key early primary contest which has always been seen as her firewall if she loses the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, shows her margin over Barack Obama falling from 16 points to ten.

The loss of support has been greatest among male voters, widening an existing gender gap. For instance, the New Hampshire survey found that while 40 per cent of Democratic women have a “very favourable” view of Mrs Clinton, only 22 per cent of the state’s Democratic male voters say the same. A national poll yesterday suggested that only 36 per cent of women would not vote for her, compared with 50 per cent of men.

Most worrying of all for Mrs Clinton is the seeming disarray over the past week in a campaign which had previously been so crisp and certain. Her evasive answer to the driver’s licence question in last week’s debate prompted rival candidates to denounce her for “double-speak”.

This prompted Mrs Clinton to issue a cleverly-edited video of the debate under the title: “The politics of piling on” and criticise the “boys’ club” world of presidential races.

There is also little doubt that some of the opposition to her is misogynist. A Facebook group called “Hillary Clinton: Stop Running For President And Make Me A Sandwich,” currently has 20,000 members.

But it is also apparent that her opponents have, until now, struggled to find the right pitch for attacking America’s first viable female presidential candidate. Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and a Clinton supporter, has spoken of a “visceral gut reaction” at the sight of her rivals rounding on her, adding: “That panel was all male.”

The trouble is that such a defence appears to undermine her rugged campaign message of “strength and experience” which she had previously deployed to win over male voters. This will be particularly important in a general election against a Republican opponent certain to emphasise national security issues.

By Friday she was backing away from playing the gender card. “I don’t think they’re piling on because I’m a woman,” she said. “I think they’re piling on because I’m winning.” But the debate has continued to rumble on. Mr Obama has pointed out that when attacked for his views on foreign policy there was no complaint that he was being “hit on” because he was black.

Feminist critics include Kate Michelman who has endorsed John Edwards. “Any serious candidate for president should be held to the same standard – whether man or woman. Have we come a long way? Well, far enough to know better than to use our gender as a shield when the questions get too hot.”

Bill Clinton has added to the confusion this week by rushing to her defence, comparing the criticism to Republican dirty tricks against the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004. His wife’s aides hurriedly issued a statement saying that he had been speaking out of turn.

Then Rudy Giuliani, the leading Republican candidate, got involved by saying: “If you think a question about drivers’ licences is a tough question, a gotcha question, you’re not ready for [the Iranian leader Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad.” But he, like any frontrunner, has his own problems. Still glowing from the extraordinary endorsement from TV evangelist Pat Robertson, a man who has polar opposite views to his on social issues such as abortion, he faces seeing one of his closest friends being publicly shamed.

Last night it was reported that a grand jury had decided to charge the former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik with the federal crime of failing to pay taxes on free apartment renovations and rent.

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