Hillary: Love her, hate her, everyone has an opinion

NEW YORK - After decades of fighting political wars for her husband, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton chased her own dream as a Senate candidate from New York state - amid a lingering mystery about who she is.

Hailed by some, demonised by others and second-guessed by many for her loyalty to President Bill Clinton despite the sex scandal that nearly cost him the White House, Hillary Clinton has been one of the most polarising figures in American politics.

Aggrieved wife. Overbearing feminist. Outstanding lawyer. Financial manipulator. Independent thinker. Inflexible bureaucrat. And, with her victory over Republican Representative Rick Lazio, United States senator.

Love her or hate her, most Americans have an opinion of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Although her decision to test the political waters by running for the Senate from New York State initially surprised many of her closest friends, they acknowledged that her decision to break with tradition came as no surprise.

"She's a groundbreaker," Lisa Caputo, the First Lady's former press secretary, said. "But that's not why she does it, what drives her."

Hillary Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist in Park Ridge, Illinois, near Chicago.

The nemesis of conservative Republicans began her political life among them - as a "Goldwater Girl" in 1964 for Republican presidential contender Barry Goldwater.

After graduation from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, she went on to Yale Law School, where she was on the law review and met a student from Arkansas named Bill Clinton. They married in 1975.

She became a highly successful lawyer at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was family breadwinner for her husband and her daughter, Chelsea, while Bill Clinton focused on winning at the polls.

But the role of breadwinner also brought problems. When she made $US100,000 ($240,000) in the cattle futures market by risking only $US1000, some complained of possible insider help.

And then there was Whitewater. The Arkansas land deal that she invested in with her husband in the 1980s would haunt the couple long after the project failed financially.

It triggered the investigation by independent counsel Kenneth Starr that dogged the Clintons throughout their White House years, culminating in the President's impeachment over his sexual relationship with a White House intern.

From the start of their foray into national politics in 1992, the Clintons antagonised some by talking about a dual presidency. The soon-to-be First Lady aggravated the situation by saying she would not be staying home and baking cookies.

After moving into the White House, she polarised people within months by taking control of the Administration's plans to overhaul the nation's health-care system, a mission that failed in part because of her own refusal to compromise with the Washington Establishment.

That battle made her one of the least popular First Ladies in US history, with pollsters finding her less liked than her husband, a dramatic break with the norm.

She attributes the visceral reaction she generated to the fact that she was trying to break the mould that entrapped so many of her predecessors and limited their public role.

Ironically, the humiliation inflicted on her by her husband's trysts with former intern Monica Lewinsky elevated her popularity to its highest levels since she moved to the White House in 1993, softening some of her harshest critics.

Deeply private when it comes to her personal life, Clinton made no effort to hide her anger in the months following her husband's public confession about Lewinsky.

But in an interview in Talk magazine in 1999, she blamed some of her husband's "weaknesses" on his difficult upbringing.

Speculation has been rampant about "the marriage," with self-appointed experts saying, "It will never last," "She'll be gone once their White House days are over" or "Establishing residency in New York is just a prelude to their separate lives."

But she has denied tabloid speculation, telling interviewers earlier this year that she intended to spend the rest of her life with her husband. And she recently said she would like to live the rest of her life in New York state, whether or not she won the Senate race.

- REUTERS

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