Who

The junior U.S. Senator from the Empire State, wife of Bill and mother of Chelsea, Hillary gave the Democratic nomination for president her best shot in 2008, but ended up coming up short. 

Backstory

Hillary grew up in Chicago, was a total nerd in high school (National Merit Finalist, student council member, Girl Scout) and headed off to Wellesley, where she did what any other prim, perfect child would do: She joined the Young Republicans club. Hillary's political views started to change during the Vietnam war, and then shifted for good when she arrived at Yale Law School and met a smooth-talking hottie named Bill Clinton. Love, romance, and wild nights out in New Haven followed before Hillary moved to Arkansas in 1974 to be with Bill as he prepared to run for Congress. He didn't win his first election, but he prevailed as attorney general two years later and moved up to governor two years after that. In the meantime, Hillary tended to her law career: She taught at the University of Arkansas Law School and then joined a law firm, where she only occasionally graced the office with her presence but used her connections as Arkansas' first lady to ensure her employer's client list was never lacking.

Hillary hit the campaign trail in 1992 when her husband sought the presidency. Despite a campaign that was dogged by scandal—Gennifer Flowers, anyone?—Bill emerged victorious, and Hillary quickly established herself as one of the most vocal first ladies in history. When she wasn't battling her husband's personal scandals and accusations about her own professional improprieties, she spearheaded the administration's 1993 push for universal health care (which sank under its own weight in 1995) and was a leading advocate for women's rights around the world. Occasionally, she dabbled in personnel matters (like, say, in the White House travel office), and bravely dodged sniper fire as she roamed the world with her husband

In 1999, after New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his plan to retire, Charlie Rangel talked Clinton into moving to New York and running for the seat. At first, it appeared she'd have formidable competition from Rudy Giuliani. But then God intervened to deliver Rudy a diagnosis of prostate cancer and he abandoned his plans—and Clinton went on to handily defeat her Republican challenger, Rick Lazio. She was re-elected to a second term in 2006 by a 30 percentage-point margin.

Of note

Hillary has defied plenty of expectations over the past few years. To win in 2000, she had to overcome the perception she was a carpetbagger. She also had to connect with voters in the decidedly less liberal environs of upstate New York. And she had to get people to like her, which would have proven much a much harder task if she hadn't been running against Rick Lazio, who had as much personality as a piece of cardboard.

When Hillary got to the Senate, many expected her to be fiercely partisan, particularly after the way her husband was handled by Republican incumbents. But she quickly demonstrated that, above all, she was a canny politician, reaching across the aisle and collaborating with many members of the Senate who had once been bitter opponents. Her record on Capitol Hill was never all that revealing: She hasn't been closely associated with any major piece of legislation and has taken middle-of-the-road Democratic position on major issues. Like most members of Congress, though, her record on the war in Iraq has been closely scrutinized, and as Barack Obama was more than happy to remind everyone during the '08 primary, Hill supported the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2003. She's since come out against the war, speaking out against the troop surge in the fall of 2006 and voting for the withdrawal of American troops.

On January 20, 2007, Clinton surprised exactly no one by announcing her plans to run for President. Although her campaign started off strong and she was considered the frontrunner in the early campaign season, that slowly changed as Obama's popularity soared and he captured the vote in many of the early primaries. Hillary's difficulties on the trail were numerous: She had trouble connecting to younger voters and African-Americans; she was a polarizing political figure with many members of the voting public; and, like so many American women, the poor lady was saddled with a husband who just didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. Of course, she didn't always help her own cause. She lied (there were no snipers, it turns out), acted a bit too negative at times, and made offensive remarks, like hinting that Obama just might be a Muslim after all. But Hillary will do fine now that she's returned to the Senate full-time. Her stature in Washington has been enhanced and she'll have plenty of time to rest and relax now that she's no longer putting in 18-hour days on the campaign trail jetting across the country.

Drama

Clinton has been accused–explicitly or otherwise–of just about all of the seven deadly sins. There was her role in a land deal known as Whitewater; right around the same time, she took flak for Travelgate and her involvement in firings at the White House travel office. In 1996, Clinton had the honor of becoming the first First Lady to testify under oath before a grand jury, regarding the death of Vince Foster, a former White House counsel who committed suicide. Then there were her husband's scandals that fell into her lap. She was blasted for her role (or non-role) in the Monica Lewinsky scandal and, later, for any influence she might have had on Bill's questionable pardons on his way out of office. The controversies since she's left the White House—and before she embarked on her bid for the presidency—have been decidedly tamer: She was battered by sports fans in 2002 after she claimed she was a Yankee fan. Outrageously, she'd sworn allegiance to the Cubs years earlier.

In person

Among friends and close allies, Hillary has a rep for being funny, sarcastic and brutally honest. Really. That's what they all say. It's true. Of course, you're not going to find those traits on display in public. She's been called stiff, cold, and overly composed—particularly when compared to Bill, who has the rhetorical gifts of an evangelical preacher. But she's not entirely devoid of emotion. In New Hampshire in February 2007, she managed to prove she could cry on demand.

In print

In 1996, she published It Takes a Village, about raising children in modern society. In 2003, she published the memoir Living History, for which she received an $8 million advance; the book sold more than a million copies in its first month. Former Clinton advisor Dick Morris was so infuriated by some of the charges in her book that he wrote an entire tome in response, Rewriting History.

Personal

Legend has it that Bill and Hillary met when the young Ms. Rodham made eyes at Bill in the Yale Law School library, prompting him to walk over to her and introduce himself. The couple married in 1975. They have one daughter, Chelsea, who was born in 1980. She's keeping it in the family: Chelsea currently works for Avenue Capital, a hedge fund run by Marc Lasry, a big Democratic donor and Clinton fundraiser.

Habitat

While in New York, Hillary lives with Bill in Chappaqua, in a house they bought in 1999 for $1.7 million. They also own a house near the vice presidential mansion in Washington, D.C., which they purchased for $2.85 million in 2001.