Topic Page
Video
Blog Posts

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has already spent far more time in the White House than the rest of the presidential field combined.

Since Mrs. Clinton began her independent political career in 2000 by running for the seat in the New York Senate being vacated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the assumption in political circles was that her ultimate goal is a return to Pennsylvania Avenue, this time as the spouse in charge. And for almost as long, the expectation has been that Mrs. Clinton would begin the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination as the front-runner -- as she has.

But what few people expected was that Mrs. Clinton would be running as the most moderate of the leaders in the Democratic field, or that her most fervent detractors, at least in the primary season, would be to her left.

During the two White House terms of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, Mrs. Clinton was for the most part lionized by the party's liberal wing, and so despised by many conservative "Hillary Haters" that Republicans were almost as active as Democrats in promoting the idea that someday she might run for president.