CHAPTER 3 WELCOME TO THE WHITE HOUSE — POWER, FAILURE, BEIJING, AND THE STORM THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
On January 20, 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton entered a world unlike anything she had known before.
The White House.
For generations, Americans had looked toward that building as the symbolic center of presidential power.
Presidents came and went.
Families moved in and moved out.
History accumulated in its rooms.
Wars had been debated there.
Economic crises had been confronted there.
Presidents had celebrated victories and endured political disasters within its walls.
Now the Clintons were moving in.
Bill Clinton was forty-six years old when he became the 42nd President of the United States.
Hillary was forty-five.
Their daughter, Chelsea, was twelve.
The family that had spent years in Arkansas suddenly belonged to the entire country.
And Hillary was about to discover that becoming First Lady did not merely increase her influence.
It multiplied the number of people watching everything she did.
THE MOST FAMOUS HOUSE IN AMERICA
Moving into the White House meant surrendering a degree of ordinary life.
There were Secret Service agents.
Schedules.
Ceremonies.
Diplomatic events.
State dinners.
Political meetings.
Press conferences.
Photographers.
Reporters.
Every appearance could become news.
Every mistake could become political ammunition.
Every decision could be interpreted as a symbol.
Chelsea’s privacy became an important concern for her parents.
But Hillary faced another challenge.
America wanted to know what kind of First Lady she intended to be.
She had already demonstrated that she was unlikely to confine herself to ceremonial responsibilities.
She had been a lawyer.
She had participated in Arkansas education reform.
She had spent years working on issues involving children and families.
She understood public policy.
President Clinton did not intend to leave that experience unused.
Only days after the inauguration, he gave Hillary an assignment that would transform her public image.
Health care.
JANUARY 25, 1993
President Clinton created the Task Force on National Health Care Reform and selected Hillary to chair it.
The assignment was extraordinary.
First Ladies had influenced policy before.
Some had exercised enormous informal influence.
But Hillary was being placed openly near the center of one of the administration’s largest domestic policy initiatives.
The problem was enormous.
Millions of Americans lacked health insurance.
Medical costs were a major concern for families, businesses, and government.
Insurers, hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, employers, labor unions, patients, and politicians all had interests in how the system operated.
Changing one part could affect another.
Changing everything at once meant confronting almost every powerful participant in American health care.
Hillary accepted the challenge.
It would become the first great political battle of her White House years.
And it would end very differently from the way the administration hoped.
TRYING TO REBUILD A SYSTEM
The task force and associated working groups began developing a comprehensive reform proposal.
Hillary met with people across the health-care system.
The administration wanted broader coverage while attempting to control costs and preserve quality.
But health policy has a brutal political reality.
Every reform creates winners, losers, fears, and uncertainties.
Even people dissatisfied with the existing system can become nervous when they believe reform might threaten the coverage they already have.
The Clinton administration was attempting to persuade Americans that a complicated restructuring could make the system more secure.
Opponents were preparing to persuade them of the opposite.
The battle became increasingly intense.
HILLARY GOES TO CAPITOL HILL
In September 1993, President Clinton addressed Congress about health-care reform.
Hillary subsequently appeared before congressional committees to defend the administration’s approach.
It was a remarkable moment.
The First Lady was not simply appearing at a ceremonial hearing.
She was answering detailed questions about policy.
She had become one of the administration’s most visible advocates for reform.
But visibility carries risk.
If the proposal succeeded, Hillary could share in an enormous political accomplishment.
If it failed, she would be closely associated with the failure.
The plan soon faced escalating opposition.
Critics attacked its complexity.
Some objected to the structure of the task force and the secrecy surrounding parts of its deliberations.
Insurance-industry advertising helped amplify public fears about the proposed changes.
Republicans opposed major elements.
Some Democrats were uncomfortable with the proposal as well.
The administration struggled to maintain momentum.
Months passed.
Negotiations continued.
The proposal became harder to explain.
And eventually the political oxygen disappeared.
In September 1994, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell announced that comprehensive health-care legislation would not move forward that year.
The initiative was effectively dead.
FAILURE IN WASHINGTON
For Hillary, the collapse was significant.
Arkansas education reform had taught her that policy was difficult.
Washington taught her that national reform could become political warfare.
Expertise was not enough.
Good intentions were not enough.
Presidential support was not enough.
Even control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress did not guarantee passage of sweeping legislation.
The experience also altered Hillary’s public image.
To critics, the health-care effort became evidence that she had been given too much political authority.
To supporters, the failure demonstrated how difficult it was to challenge entrenched interests and restructure a massive industry.
Whatever interpretation Americans preferred, one fact was unavoidable:
The administration’s signature health-care overhaul had failed.
And Hillary had been its most recognizable advocate after the President himself.
Then came November 1994.
THE REPUBLICAN WAVE
The midterm elections produced a dramatic political shift.
Republicans won control of both the House and Senate.
For the Clinton administration, the political environment had changed.
The White House could no longer operate as though large Democratic legislative majorities would carry its agenda.
For Hillary, the lesson was personal as well as political.
Her role began changing.
She remained active.
But some of her most consequential work would increasingly focus on children, women, and targeted initiatives rather than another attempt to redesign an enormous portion of the American economy.
And soon, the world would see a different side of Hillary Clinton.
Not in Washington.
In Beijing.
SEPTEMBER 1995
The Fourth World Conference on Women brought representatives from nations around the world to Beijing, China.
Hillary attended as First Lady of the United States.
The trip itself attracted political attention.
Human rights were sensitive.
Relations between the United States and China were complicated.
The treatment of women was politically charged.
There were reasons for an American First Lady to choose careful diplomatic language.
Hillary instead delivered the speech that would become one of the defining moments of her public career.
She spoke about abuses suffered by women and girls.
Violence.
Forced prostitution.
Female infanticide.
Domestic abuse.
Sexual violence.
Forced sterilization and forced abortion.
Then came the line that would become inseparable from her name:
“Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights.”
The phrase was larger than American party politics.
It was a declaration about the place of women within the international human-rights framework.
For Hillary, Beijing represented something important.
The health-care fight had shown the limits of her political power at home.
Beijing demonstrated the reach of her international platform.
She was beginning to build a public identity that did not depend entirely on Bill Clinton.
That distinction would matter enormously later.
Because the Clinton marriage was heading toward the most public crisis it had ever faced.
But first, the administration had to win another election.
1996 — A SECOND TERM
Bill Clinton sought reelection in 1996 against Republican nominee Bob Dole.
The political environment had changed substantially since 1994.
The President ultimately won a second term.
For Hillary, reelection meant another four years in the White House.
But her second term as First Lady would be different from the first.
The grand health-care initiative was behind her.
She continued advocating for children and families.
In 1997, Hillary and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright helped launch the Vital Voices Democracy Initiative, aimed at supporting women’s participation and leadership internationally.
She was becoming increasingly recognizable as a global advocate for women.
Yet inside American politics, another story was growing.
A story involving investigations.
Arkansas.
Money.
Records.
And a name that would become familiar to almost every politically attentive American of the 1990s:
Whitewater.
THE SHADOW OF WHITEWATER
Whitewater referred to a real-estate investment involving Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Arkansas business partners, James and Susan McDougal.
What began as scrutiny of an old land deal expanded into a much broader independent-counsel investigation.
The investigation examined a range of matters connected to Arkansas financial dealings and individuals associated with the Clintons.
For Hillary, Whitewater meant years of questions.
Documents were examined.
Past professional relationships were scrutinized.
Her work as an attorney became part of national political controversy.
She testified before a federal grand jury in 1996, an extraordinary event for a sitting First Lady.
The investigation became a recurring feature of Clinton-era politics.
But the scandal that would eventually threaten Bill Clinton’s presidency began somewhere else.
And when it exploded publicly, it would overwhelm almost everything around it.
JANUARY 1998
News reports emerged alleging a sexual relationship between President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern.
The story detonated across American media.
The President publicly denied having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky.
Hillary defended her husband publicly during the early stages of the controversy.
But the investigation continued.
Evidence accumulated.
The story changed.
And eventually Bill Clinton acknowledged an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky.
For Hillary, the crisis was simultaneously political and personal.
But responsible biography reaches a boundary here.
Public records can document what Hillary said publicly.
They can document the timeline.
They can document the President’s admission.
They can document impeachment.
They cannot tell us every private conversation, thought, or emotion inside the Clinton marriage.
Those belong to the people who lived them unless they chose to disclose them.
What the public could see was extraordinary enough.
A President was fighting for political survival.
A First Lady was watching her marriage become international news.
And their daughter was watching the world discuss her parents’ private life.
THE PRESIDENCY ON TRIAL
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr investigated matters related to the Lewinsky relationship and whether the President had committed offenses including perjury or obstruction of justice.
The investigation ultimately produced a report to Congress.
The House of Representatives considered impeachment.
On December 19, 1998, the House approved two articles of impeachment against President Clinton: one alleging perjury before a grand jury and another alleging obstruction of justice.
Bill Clinton became only the second American president to be impeached by the House at that time.
But impeachment does not automatically remove a president.
The Constitution requires a Senate trial.
In February 1999, the Senate voted on the two articles.
Neither received the two-thirds majority required for conviction and removal.
President Clinton remained in office.
The constitutional crisis was over.
The consequences were not.
HILLARY AFTER THE STORM
Something important happened during these years.
Hillary Clinton’s public life did not disappear into her husband’s scandal.
Instead, she increasingly developed a political future of her own.
She traveled.
She spoke publicly.
She advocated on women’s and children’s issues.
She had already endured years of hostile political scrutiny.
She had experienced the failure of health-care reform.
She had watched Republicans take Congress.
She had lived through investigations.
She had survived a marital scandal conducted under the brightest possible public spotlight.
And she remained one of the most recognizable political figures in America.
Then speculation began growing around an extraordinary possibility.
Hillary Clinton might run for office herself.
Not someday in the distant future.
Immediately.
NEW YORK
The idea seemed strange at first.
Hillary had grown up in Illinois.
Her adult political life had been centered in Arkansas and Washington.
Now she was considering New York.
A United States Senate seat from New York was becoming available because Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was retiring.
Democratic leaders and supporters encouraged Hillary to consider running.
The possibility immediately generated debate.
Critics accused her of seeking a convenient state from which to launch a political career.
Supporters argued that she had the experience and national profile to represent New York effectively.
But the central question was simpler.
Could a First Lady become an elected official in her own right?
No First Lady had ever been elected to the United States Senate.
Hillary would have to persuade voters to see her not as the President’s wife, but as a candidate.
It required a transformation.
For years, Americans had known her through Bill Clinton’s career.
Now she would ask them to judge hers.
THE LISTENING TOUR
In 1999, Hillary began spending extensive time in New York.
She launched what became known as a listening tour.
Instead of immediately presenting herself as someone who already possessed every answer, she traveled around the state meeting voters and learning about regional concerns.
New York was not one political community.
New York City had enormous economic and cultural power.
But upstate communities faced very different problems.
There were farmers.
Manufacturing towns.
Suburbs.
Small businesses.
Immigrant communities.
Financial institutions.
Universities.
Labor unions.
Rural counties.
Hillary needed to demonstrate that she wanted to represent all of them.
This was retail politics.
Different from the White House.
Different from international conferences.
Different from appearing beside a presidential candidate.
She needed votes bearing her own name.
FROM FIRST LADY TO CANDIDATE
The symbolism was difficult to miss.
In 1992, Hillary had entered national politics as the spouse of a presidential candidate.
Eight years later, she was the candidate.
Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his presidency.
Hillary Clinton’s political career was beginning.
She formally entered the New York Senate race.
Her Republican opponent eventually became Congressman Rick Lazio after New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani withdrew from the race.
The campaign was intensely watched.
Hillary’s supporters saw an experienced advocate entering electoral politics.
Her opponents emphasized questions about her ties to New York and her record in the Clinton administration.
The voters would decide which version mattered more.
NOVEMBER 7, 2000
Election Day.
Across America, attention was focused heavily on the presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
But in New York, another historic result was unfolding.
Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Senate election.
The woman who had entered the White House as First Lady was leaving it as Senator-elect from New York.
It was an extraordinary reversal of the traditional political trajectory.
Usually a politician wins office and then brings a spouse into public life.
Hillary had entered the White House because her husband had won.
Now she had won for herself.
The title was about to change.
No longer merely:
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Soon:
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
THE END OF ONE PRESIDENCY
January 2001 marked the end of Bill Clinton’s two terms in office.
For eight years, Hillary had occupied one of America’s most visible unelected positions.
Those years had contained almost every political extreme.
Triumph.
Failure.
Policy ambition.
International advocacy.
Investigations.
Scandal.
Impeachment.
Electoral victory.
She entered the White House as a First Lady determined to participate actively in policy.
She left with something no previous First Lady had possessed.
An elected seat in the United States Senate.
And perhaps most importantly, she left with a political identity increasingly separate from her husband’s.
But the Senate would introduce Hillary to another world.
September 11.
War.
National security.
Votes whose consequences would follow her for decades.
Reelection.
And then a question that had once seemed almost unimaginable.
Would Hillary Clinton run for President of the United States herself?
The answer was coming.
And when it came, another young senator—with an unusual name and an extraordinary ability to draw crowds—would stand directly in her path.
His name was Barack Obama.
END OF CHAPTER 3
NEXT CHAPTER
CHAPTER 4 — SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON: 9/11, WAR, THE IRAQ VOTE, AND THE DECISION TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT
Hillary Clinton had spent eight years living inside the White House.
Now she had to walk into the United States Senate as one member among one hundred.
Then, only months into her first term, America was attacked on September 11, 2001.
New York became the center of a national tragedy.
Hillary’s new job changed overnight.
Questions about terrorism, war, intelligence, Afghanistan, Iraq, veterans, rebuilding New York, and American power would dominate the years ahead.
One Senate vote in particular would follow Hillary for the rest of her political career.
The 2002 authorization for the use of military force against Iraq.
She voted yes.
Years later, during a Democratic presidential primary, that decision would become one of the sharpest contrasts between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Because Hillary was moving toward something no woman had ever achieved in a major American political party.
She was going to make a serious campaign for the presidency.
Many believed she entered the 2008 race with formidable advantages.
Then Obama began winning.
And Hillary Clinton discovered that after surviving Arkansas, the White House, scandal, impeachment, and a Senate campaign, perhaps the hardest political fight of her life was still ahead.
CHAPTER 4 SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON — 9/11, WAR, THE IRAQ VOTE, AND THE BATTLE AGAINST BARACK OBAMA
On January 3, 2001, Hillary Rodham Clinton entered the United States Senate.
This time, Bill Clinton had not put her there.
The voters had.
That distinction changed almost everything.
For eight years, Hillary had occupied the most famous unelected position available to an American political spouse.
Now she possessed something fundamentally different.
A vote.
A constituency.
A six-year term.
And political accountability that belonged directly to her.
She represented New York.
She was also making history.
Hillary Clinton became the first woman elected to the United States Senate from New York and the first First Lady in American history to win elective office.
The transition carried an unusual irony.
She had spent eight years living at the symbolic center of American political power.
Now she was beginning again.
One senator among one hundred.
And before her first year was over, the world would change.
FROM THE WHITE HOUSE TO THE SENATE
It would have been easy for Hillary to enter the Senate behaving like a celebrity.
Everyone knew her.
Her arrival generated attention far beyond that given to a typical freshman senator.
She had traveled internationally.
She had participated in presidential policy debates.
She had testified before Congress.
She had survived years of investigations and political conflict.
But the Senate had its own hierarchy.
Seniority mattered.
Committees mattered.
Relationships mattered.
A former First Lady could not simply command the institution.
Hillary had to learn how to operate as a legislator.
Her assignments included the Senate Armed Services Committee later in her tenure, bringing her directly into debates about the military and national security.
Those subjects were about to dominate American politics.
Because eight months after Hillary became senator, New York was attacked.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
Tuesday morning.
September 11.
Four commercial airplanes were hijacked.
Two struck the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.
Another hit the Pentagon.
A fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew resisted the hijackers.
Nearly three thousand people were killed.
For America, September 11 became a national trauma.
For Hillary Clinton, it was also an attack on the people she had been elected to represent.
New York was suddenly not merely America’s largest city.
It was the site of catastrophe.
The towers collapsed.
Lower Manhattan was covered in debris.
Families searched for missing relatives.
Firefighters, police officers, emergency workers, construction crews, volunteers, and medical personnel entered an environment filled with destruction and uncertainty.
The political priorities of Hillary’s Senate career changed immediately.
She worked on securing federal assistance for New York’s recovery and became involved in issues affecting people exposed to the toxic environment surrounding Ground Zero.
The former First Lady was now confronting something different from White House policy battles.
Her constituents were grieving.
Some had lost spouses.
Some had lost parents.
Some had lost children.
Some rescue and recovery workers would later develop serious illnesses.
The attacks also produced another question.
How should the United States respond?
AMERICA GOES TO WAR
The United States quickly focused on al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, where the Taliban government had provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Congress authorized military force against those responsible for the attacks.
American forces entered Afghanistan.
But within a year, Washington’s attention increasingly turned toward another country.
Iraq.
President George W. Bush’s administration argued that Saddam Hussein’s regime represented a serious security threat and emphasized concerns involving weapons of mass destruction.
The administration sought congressional authorization to use military force.
Every senator would have to make a decision.
Hillary Clinton faced the vote.
And the decision she made would follow her for years.
OCTOBER 2002
Hillary Clinton voted in favor of the resolution authorizing President Bush to use military force against Iraq.
At the time, supporters of the resolution presented arguments involving Iraqi noncompliance with international obligations, weapons concerns, and national security.
Opponents warned that authorization could lead to an unnecessary or disastrous war.
The resolution passed.
Months later, in March 2003, the United States and its allies invaded Iraq.
Baghdad fell quickly.
Saddam Hussein’s government collapsed.
But the conflict did not end.
An insurgency developed.
Sectarian violence intensified.
American casualties mounted.
Iraqi civilians suffered enormously.
And the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that had been central to the public case for war were not found.
The political meaning of the 2002 vote began changing.
For Hillary, it would become one of the most consequential votes of her Senate career.
Years later, when she sought the Democratic presidential nomination, opponents would repeatedly return to it.
One of those opponents had not been in the United States Senate when the vote occurred.
But he had publicly opposed the Iraq War before the invasion.
His name was Barack Obama.
BUILDING A SENATE RECORD
Iraq did not consume every part of Hillary’s Senate career.
She worked on New York issues.
She dealt with health care, military matters, children’s concerns, economic questions, and support for first responders.
The political image she had carried out of the White House also began evolving.
In the 1990s, Hillary had often been portrayed through the intense controversies surrounding the Clinton administration.
In the Senate, she had an opportunity to demonstrate a different political style.
Legislation requires relationships.
Senators must work with colleagues they disagree with.
Committee work rarely resembles campaign rallies.
Negotiation becomes unavoidable.
Hillary built working relationships with senators from both parties.
It was less dramatic than presidential politics.
But it was valuable preparation for what she increasingly appeared to want.
The presidency.
2006 — THE VOTERS DECIDE AGAIN
Hillary sought reelection to the Senate in 2006.
This time, she was no longer asking New Yorkers to take a chance on a former First Lady.
She had a Senate record.
Voters could evaluate her performance.
She won reelection comfortably.
Now speculation became unavoidable.
Would Hillary Clinton run for president?
The possibility carried enormous historical significance.
Women had run for president before.
Women had sought major-party nominations before.
But Hillary possessed a combination of national recognition, fundraising ability, political organization, government experience, and connections that made her candidacy unusually formidable.
Then, in January 2007, she made it official.
“I’M IN”
Hillary Clinton announced that she was forming a presidential exploratory committee.
She was running.
The 2008 Democratic nomination contest immediately became one of the most closely watched races in modern American politics.
Hillary entered with enormous advantages.
Almost everyone knew her name.
She had been First Lady.
She was a senator.
She had a national fundraising network.
She had relationships throughout the Democratic Party.
Bill Clinton remained an important political figure and campaign asset.
But the Democratic field contained another candidate whose political rise had been remarkably fast.
Barack Hussein Obama.
Senator from Illinois.
THE MAN FROM ILLINOIS
Obama had attracted national attention at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
His keynote address introduced millions of Americans to a politician many had barely known.
By 2007, he was a United States senator and presidential candidate.
Obama offered a political message centered on hope, change, and a desire to move beyond some of the divisions that had shaped American politics.
He was also younger than Hillary.
And crucially, he could draw a contrast over Iraq.
Hillary had voted for the 2002 authorization.
Obama, who had been an Illinois state senator rather than a member of Congress at the time, had publicly opposed launching the war.
For Democratic voters increasingly frustrated with Iraq, the distinction mattered.
The contest began.
TWO HISTORIC CANDIDACIES
The Democratic primary of 2008 was remarkable before anyone knew who would win.
If Hillary prevailed and ultimately won the presidency, America would have its first female president.
If Obama prevailed and won the general election, America would have its first Black president.
Millions of Democratic voters understood that they were watching history regardless of the outcome.
But historical symbolism did not make the campaign gentle.
Hillary and Obama wanted the same nomination.
Only one could have it.
Debates became increasingly important.
Every statement was examined.
Every primary generated headlines.
Every delegate mattered.
And the first major contest delivered Hillary a painful surprise.
IOWA
January 3, 2008.
The Iowa caucuses.
Obama won.
Hillary finished third.
The result challenged assumptions about the race.
Obama had demonstrated that enthusiasm around his candidacy could be converted into actual votes and delegates.
Suddenly, Hillary’s campaign faced a dangerous narrative.
Was the presumed national leader about to collapse?
The next major contest was New Hampshire.
Hillary needed a comeback.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Polls and political commentary had created expectations of another difficult night for Clinton.
Instead, on January 8, Hillary won the New Hampshire Democratic primary.
The campaign had changed again.
She was not finished.
What followed became a long, exhausting contest stretching across America.
Nevada.
South Carolina.
Super Tuesday.
Ohio.
Texas.
Pennsylvania.
North Carolina.
Indiana.
West Virginia.
Kentucky.
Puerto Rico.
Montana.
South Dakota.
State after state voted.
Neither candidate disappeared.
THE DELEGATE WAR
Presidential primaries are not simply popularity contests.
They are delegate contests.
The Democratic Party’s proportional allocation rules meant that a candidate could win a state yet split many delegates with the runner-up.
That made Obama’s organizational strategy particularly important.
His campaign competed aggressively in caucuses and states that sometimes received less national attention.
Hillary won several major states and important constituencies.
Obama accumulated delegates across a broad map.
The arithmetic became increasingly difficult for Clinton.
Yet she continued.
Millions of voters continued supporting her.
And the campaign increasingly became about something larger than two candidates.
It became a national conversation about gender, race, experience, change, electability, political dynasties, and what Americans wanted after eight years of George W. Bush.
The Democratic Party was changing in real time.
THE CAMPAIGN GETS HARDER
Long primary campaigns test more than policy.
They test endurance.
Candidates travel constantly.
They deliver the same arguments hundreds of times.
They answer questions under exhaustion.
Campaign organizations burn enormous amounts of money.
Staff disagreements become public.
Every mistake is amplified.
For Hillary, another complication existed.
Bill Clinton was campaigning too.
His presence could help attract crowds and remind voters of the economic conditions of the 1990s.
But it also complicated Hillary’s effort to present the campaign as entirely her own.
Was this Hillary Clinton’s candidacy?
A restoration of the Clinton political era?
Something new?
Different voters answered differently.
Obama’s argument was simpler.
Change.
The contrast was powerful.
THE IRAQ VOTE RETURNS
Again and again, the 2002 Iraq authorization haunted Hillary’s campaign.
Democratic voters wanted explanations.
Had the vote been a mistake?
Had the Bush administration misused the authority Congress provided?
Should Hillary explicitly apologize?
Her handling of the question became part of a larger debate about judgment.
Obama had a politically valuable answer available to him.
He had opposed the war before it began.
Hillary possessed greater national-security experience.
But Obama possessed the cleaner anti-war record.
It was an example of a fundamental political reality.
Votes cast years earlier can become defining moments under circumstances no senator can fully predict.
Hillary had wanted executive experience.
The Senate had given her experience.
It had also given her a record.
Now every part of that record could be used against her.
THE POSSIBILITY OF A WOMAN PRESIDENT
As the primary stretched into spring 2008, Hillary’s campaign acquired another emotional dimension.
Women who had spent decades watching American presidents—all men—saw something unprecedented.
A woman was winning presidential primaries across the country.
She was not running symbolically.
She had a genuine chance to capture a major-party nomination.
Young girls attended rallies.
Older women who remembered eras of much narrower professional opportunity watched the campaign closely.
But symbolism could not solve the delegate problem.
Obama’s advantage was becoming increasingly difficult to overcome.
The race continued anyway.
Pennsylvania gave Hillary another important victory.
Indiana kept her hopes alive.
She won West Virginia and Kentucky decisively.
But Obama continued collecting delegates.
Then came June.
The end was near.
JUNE 3, 2008
The final primary contests concluded.
Obama had accumulated enough delegate support to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.
For Hillary, the reality was unavoidable.
Seventeen months after entering the race, her first presidential campaign was ending.
She had not achieved the goal.
But she had come closer to a major-party presidential nomination than any woman in American history up to that point.
Now she faced another decision.
Would she fight the result?
Would she remain distant from Obama?
Or would she support the man who had defeated her?
Four days later, she answered.
JUNE 7, 2008
Washington, D.C.
Hillary stood before her supporters.
The campaign was over.
She congratulated Barack Obama.
She endorsed him.
And she addressed the historic meaning of what her supporters had attempted.
Her concession speech contained an image that would remain associated with her political career.
She spoke about women confronting barriers and said that although they had not shattered the highest glass ceiling, it now contained approximately eighteen million cracks—a reference to the votes she had received during the primary season.
It was a statement about defeat.
But also about progress.
The nomination had escaped her.
The possibility had not.
SUPPORTING OBAMA
Hillary campaigned for Obama during the general election.
At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, she urged her supporters to back the Democratic ticket.
Obama defeated Republican Senator John McCain on November 4, 2008.
America elected its first Black president.
For Hillary, the election seemed to create an obvious next chapter.
Return to the Senate.
Continue representing New York.
Perhaps prepare for another future campaign.
But Barack Obama had another idea.
The man who had just defeated Hillary Clinton in a bitter presidential primary wanted her inside his administration.
And not in a minor position.
Secretary of State.
AN UNEXPECTED OFFER
The Department of State sits at the center of American diplomacy.
Its secretary travels the world representing the President and the United States.
Wars.
Alliances.
Nuclear negotiations.
Human rights.
Terrorism.
Trade.
Regional conflicts.
Diplomatic crises.
Almost every major international issue eventually reaches the Secretary of State.
Accepting the job would require Hillary to leave the Senate.
It would also require something politically remarkable.
She would have to serve the president who had defeated her.
Obama, meanwhile, would be placing one of the Democratic Party’s most famous figures inside his Cabinet.
Their rivalry would have to become a working relationship.
Hillary accepted.
President-elect Obama formally announced her as his choice for Secretary of State in December 2008.
The nomination went to the Senate.
The same institution where Hillary had served for eight years would now decide whether she should become America’s chief diplomat.
JANUARY 21, 2009
The Senate voted.
94 senators supported Hillary Clinton’s confirmation.
Only two voted against.
She was confirmed as the 67th Secretary of State of the United States.
The transformation was complete.
First Lady.
Senator.
Presidential candidate.
And now Secretary of State.
The woman who had entered the White House in 1993 because her husband had been elected president was returning to the executive branch sixteen years later under her own political identity.
But the world awaiting her was dangerous.
Two wars were underway.
Iran’s nuclear program was a major concern.
North Korea remained unpredictable.
Relations with Russia required attention.
China was becoming increasingly powerful.
The Middle East remained unstable.
Terrorism continued to threaten American interests.
And inside Pakistan, the United States was still hunting the man responsible for the attacks that had transformed Hillary’s first year in the Senate.
Osama bin Laden.
Two years into Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State, President Obama would summon senior national-security officials to confront an extraordinary discovery.
American intelligence believed it had found bin Laden.
The decision that followed would become one of the defining national-security moments of the Obama presidency.
And Hillary Clinton would be inside the room.
But even that would not become the most politically explosive event of her years at the State Department.
That would come later.
In a city in Libya.
Benghazi.
And the consequences would follow Hillary all the way into another campaign for the presidency.
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