Clinton Is A Politician Not Easily Defined

She said the biggest lesson learned is that there can be no progress on health care without the business community. "There has to be a consensus in the public and private sector before we can ever get the political system to respond," she said.

Hillary Clinton has a populist streak that sometimes takes on an angry edge, in contrast to her husband. But one policy aide in the Clinton White House who has worked closely with both Clintons suggested their differences are stylistic. "She's just blunter in the way she talks about things than he is," the adviser said. "If you hear the same policy from both of them, because he sugarcoated it and she didn't, it might sound more centrist coming from him than from her."

No Clinton speech has drawn more attention than her January 2005 address in which she described abortion as a "sad, even tragic choice" for many women. The speech was widely interpreted as her effort to move toward the center. Her advisers, worried that she would be attacked for inconsistency, insisted that it represented no change from her past position.

The speech, read in its entirety, was a ringing endorsement of a woman's right to choose, and its political purpose, advisers say, was to put abortion foes on the defensive about contraception, not to make news by softening Clinton's tone on abortion.

This summer, Clinton will participate in the rollout of a Democratic agenda, a project initiated by the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. At her urging, the project includes participation of the liberal Center for American Progress, as well as two other centrist groups, the New Democrat Network and Third Way.

When he sought the presidency, Bill Clinton used the DLC to signal a break from the old Democratic Party when the DLC officials were at war with the liberal wing. Hillary Clinton appears to have the opposite goal, which is to use the DLC as a base from which to unite the party to rebut criticism that Democrats have no common message.

Galston suggested that people are asking the wrong questions about her. "I think the real issue that people ought to be talking about is not whether she's consistent or sincere," he said. "If I'm reading her correctly, she is. The real question that people ought to be asking is, given what she's stood for unflinchingly, is that the direction they want the standard-bearer to take the party?"

Research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.