I think the point right now with both Obama and Hillary's recent wins is the same as the point of (way back in the Dark Ages when some of you were children) Geri Ferraro in the VP slot -- it's not so much about whether they win in the end but simply of showing The Powers That Be that people will not stay away from a black or a woman in droves.
There were people who predicted that with Ferraro on the ticket, hordes of people would vote Republican just because they didn't trust a woman in power. That didn't happen. I was deeply involved in a friend's dad's Congressional campaign that year, so I got all the statistics broken out for that district. In our district (can't speak for any other), the Democratic Presidential ticket got nearly the same percent of the vote as the Democratic Congressional candidate. So, yeah, maybe a few men wouldn't vote for a woman as VP, but it wasn't "hordes" as some people claimed it would be.
And even if neither of them goes all the way this year, they've at least made the point that "a" woman or "a" person of color would not be automatically rejected by voters, and open the door to more non-WASP-male candidates next time. I can think of better candidates in both categories, but this opens the door without the better candidates getting tagged with the loser label.