Hillary Clinton and Leadership

No other First Lady in recent history has been as admired and vilified as Hillary Rodham Clinton. Breaking from the mold of her immediate predecessors, Clinton has more in common with her earlier counterparts, like Eleanor Roosevelt, Dolly Madison, Abigail Adams or Mamie Doud Eisenhower.

However, many of her predecessors wielded a tremendous amount of power simply through their access to the president. Nancy Reagan, for example, would often discuss the effects of their friendship with the Gorbachevs in light of the unease over the Cold War.

Unlike them, Clinton was clearly not interested in this delicate, secondary form of leadership. Rather, she became an active participant in several of her husband's most important campaigns -- from health care to welfare reform. When her term as First Lady ended, she extended her leadership role further in her new position as New York's junior senator.

Through a...
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