From mistakes, Clinton has learned, adjusted

"She was sensitive to the political dynamics" post-healthcare reform, says Mr. Jennings, now an informal adviser to her campaign. "She cared more about outcomes than about credit."

Learning the price of compromise

By the end of Bill Clinton's first term, Hillary had learned a second important lesson about life in Washington: The compromises required in passing major legislation can turn an idealist into a pragmatist – and exact a big personal cost. The issue was welfare reform, and for the first lady, more than two decades of advocacy for children ran into the political reality that the new system could allow some children to fall through the cracks.

By the 1990s, the nation was ready for change. The old welfare system from the 1930s had evolved into one that encouraged government dependence. The question was, would the new system and its five-year lifetime limit provide enough supports to help people – typically, low-skilled single mothers – move successfully from welfare to work?

In her memoirs, Clinton calls the legislation "far from perfect" but justifies backing her husband's decision to sign it by citing "pragmatic politics." The year was 1996, and President Clinton faced a Republican-controlled Congress with an activist House speaker, Newt Gingrich, at the helm. The president had vetoed the first two versions of reform, and if he vetoed the third, the first lady felt he would be handing the Republicans a "potential political windfall."

Her endorsement of the reform outraged some loyal supporters, including her mentor, Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund. Clinton had interned for Ms. Edelman while in law school and, as first lady of Arkansas, was chairman of CDF's board. Edelman's husband, Peter, resigned his post as an assistant secretary for Health and Human Services in protest.

"In the painful aftermath, I realized that I had crossed the line from advocate to policy maker," Clinton writes in her book "Living History." "I hadn't altered my beliefs, but I respectfully disagreed with the convictions and passion of the Edelmans and others who objected to the legislation. As advocates, they were not bound to compromise…."

Her rift over welfare with the Edelmans, she writes, was "sad and difficult."

Acquiring foreign-policy credentials

Clinton remains the only first lady to have had an office in the White House's power center, the West Wing. In many important respects, she did operate at the level of a top aide or even the vice president.

But she did not have a security clearance or attend National Security Council meetings, and despite her talk of having visited some 80 countries as first lady, her efforts on the campaign trail to turn some of them into major diplomatic ventures have backfired.

Earlier in the primary season, Clinton trumpeted her role in bringing together Catholic and Protestant women in Northern Ireland, in an apparent effort to show that she was instrumental in settling the overall Northern Ireland conflict. Her anecdote set off a battle of claims and counterclaims by others involved in the peace process, leaving a haze over the whole story. As a result, a part of the press narrative is that candidate Clinton has a tendency to exaggerate her role in the successes of her husband's administration.

Her five-plus years on the Senate Armed Services Committee may in fact give more heft to her claims of defense and foreign-policy expertise than her travels as first lady. After two years as the junior senator from New York, she fought hard to join Armed Services – the first New York senator ever to serve on that committee.

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