Hillary Clinton's Life Pivots Once More

Former President Bill Clinton applauds his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on her re-election as she speaks to supporters at a Democratic victory party in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006. Clinton will embark on a widely anticipated campaign for the White House Saturday, Jan. 20, 2007, a former first lady intent on becoming the nation's first female president. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin ) (Frank Franklin - AP)

By summer, Hillary was in a chocolate chip cookie bake-off with Barbara Bush _ and won.

Even after the campaign was over and won, the "zone of privacy" proved to be nothing but a fantasy. It took Clinton time to become reconciled to that.

In the meantime, the Whitewater drumbeat continued. Questions about her commodity trades back in Arkansas persisted. Her every move _ and haircut _ was put under the microscope.

Put in charge of the monumental task of health care reform by her husband, Hillary Clinton set out to redefine the role of first lady. When the health care effort turned into a monumental failure, on bad days she would blame herself for coming on too strong and galvanizing her opponents.

It was late in 1994, at her famous hourlong news conference, when she acknowledged the inevitable: "I've always believed in a zone of privacy, and I told a friend the other day that I feel after resisting for a long time I've been rezoned."

Clinton pulled back somewhat after that, but she continued to speak out on issues in a more restrained manner. Famously resilient, she dismissed the Whitewater investigation as "the endless saga that someday, perhaps in my lifetime, will end."

Then, in 1998, came the awful unfolding of news about her husband's dalliances with Monica Lewinsky. It baffled the public that Clinton would stand by her husband, and at the same time most admired it.

It seemed to melt, for a time, the public's harsh judgments of her.

Asked to supply a one-word description of Hillary Clinton, the top five responses in a national survey released in August 1998 were strong, intelligent, brave, good and loyal. Two years earlier, the order was strong, dishonest, intelligent, smart and "rhymes with rich."

Clinton found herself at a remarkable intersection in the twilight of her husband's presidency _ the public and her very private storm over his infidelity, the closing of the White House years and the prospects for coming into her own politically after giving ground for so long.

"The most difficult decisions I have made in my life were to stay married to Bill and to run for the Senate from New York," she said. She decided she wanted the marriage to last, if that was possible.

Politics? "I was a seasoned campaigner," she said, but always for others. "I was accustomed to referring to 'he,' 'she' or 'we,' not 'I.'" She went on a "listening tour," a quick study of her adopted state, and took on New York's formidable mayor, Rudy Giuliani, in the 2000 Senate race. When Giuliani dropped out of the race, battling prostate cancer, Clinton handily defeated his scrappy replacement.