You can debate whether the sudden upwelling of animosity towards her was caused by the healthcare debacle or whether the animosity was already there from day one of the new administration, and thus she never had a chance, in political terms, to succeed. It has often been posited that Mrs Clinton inspires hatred precisely because she is a woman who pushes. She quickly agreed to head a presidential commission on overhauling the US health-care system. Symbolically, she eschewed the traditional East Wing quarters of a First Lady and moved into the executive territory of the West Wing.Very quickly those high poll numbers nose-dived, hitting 46 per cent by the start of the 1996 re-election campaign. But the new First Lady, who was enjoying high approval ratings at the time of her husband's inauguration - about 67 per cent - pressed on. One campaign button that year offered this about the Clintons: "Buy one, get one free".Thus began the start of an extraordinary and painfully twisting relationship between Mrs Clinton and the rest of America For some in the country, she was already beyond the pale.

The conservative cottage industry that demonises Hillary was quick to begin grinding. She famously mocked the "Stand by your Man" ethic as sung by Tammy Wynette. When quizzed one day about her work at the law firm, she famously replied that she was not one to stay in and bake cookies. By the time the pair reached the national stage in the presidential campaign of 1992, all of America could see the governor's wife was no stay-at-home.

As he climbed the greasy pole of public office in Little Rock, she pursued a career of her own as a partner in the Rose law firm. The then Hillary Rodham discarded her prepared remarks and challenged the senator head-on, saying hers was a generation that meant to change the world.Hillary later married Bill Clinton from Arkansas, whose own political ambitions were worn on his sleeve and every other part of his person. Her oldest friends will remind you of the day in the ferment-filled year of 1969, when she took the podium as student speaker at Wellesley College's graduation ceremony. A US senator, Edward Brooke, had just implored the students to turn their back on social protests and show some adult responsibility.