Clinton: seeking to become first woman president

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton's win in Pennsylvania kept alive the White House hopes of a woman who has been both admired and reviled as she took on her own political battles after decades fighting for her husband.

The victory kept her in the race to be the Democratic presidential nominee in the November election, although with just nine more state contests to go, time is running out for her to catch rival Sen. Barack Obama.

Love her or hate her, most Americans have a strong opinion of the wife of former President Bill Clinton who won a tough battle in 2000 for a U.S. Senate seat from New York and this year sought the country's top political office.

Adored by some for her toughness and detailed grasp of policy, she is reviled by others for what they see as her radical ideas, and second-guessed by many for her loyalty to her famously wayward husband.

Clinton, 60, has been variously cast by the public and the media as a calculating politician, aggrieved wife, overbearing feminist, outstanding lawyer, financial manipulator and independent thinker.

In the presidential campaign she went from overwhelming favorite last year, to third-place loser in the first Democratic nominating contest in January, and then back and forth in a see-saw battle with Obama.

Clinton has long been a lightning rod for controversy, in part because of her own interest in unconventional challenges -- like making history by becoming the first first lady to seek and then win political office.

In her second Senate term she began her presidential nomination bid and was immediately a real prospect.

Unlike many countries that have had women at the helm, such as Britain, India, Germany and Argentina, U.S. voters never put a woman in the White House. Clinton's candidacy attracted strong support from middle-aged and elderly women who saw her as embodying their own struggles for gender equality.

'TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE'

Clinton was first lady in Arkansas when Bill Clinton was governor there, but most Americans first encountered her during her husband's 1992 presidential campaign when he promised voters "two for the price of one," in reference to her sharp mind and strong interest in politics and policy issues.

The soon-to-be first lady -- who met Bill Clinton while both were at Yale Law School and married him in 1975 -- added to the sense of an unusually active political wife by announcing she would not be staying home and baking cookies.

Opponents seized on that as evidence she was a radical feminist and a threat to conservative values. Critics noted every detail, from her changing hairstyles to the tasks she took on as the wife of the president.

Within months of moving into the White House she took control of administration plans to overhaul the country's health-care system -- a mission that failed in part due to her refusal to compromise with the Washington establishment.

But perhaps the most lasting image of Clinton as first lady was formed during her husband's second term, during the scandal over his affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.

Clinton, deeply private about her personal life and that of the couple's daughter, Chelsea, was visibly angry after her husband's admission of his affair. The case rocked Washington, led to his impeachment and clipped his political authority.

His wife stuck with him. Critics saw that as odd, and politically calculating. Others felt the Clinton marriage was none of the public's business.

SENATE AND BEYOND

Clinton chose to run for the U.S. Senate from New York, a state in which she and her husband established residency only at the end of his presidency. She quickly won respect in the Senate by working hard, paying her political dues and looking after New York's interests. She was handily re-elected in 2006.

She was long considered the party's invincible front-runner in the presidential race, in large part because of her wide name recognition and deep campaign coffers. Her loss in the first U.S. nominating contest -- the Iowa caucus in early January -- was a jolt.

Criticized as stiff and overly choreographed, the candidate and her campaign underwent a change in tactics and strategy during the fight to win the next contest, in New Hampshire.

There, a teary emotional moment by an exhausted Clinton was said to have brought many voters, particularly women, around to her side. "I found my own voice," Clinton said after the New Hampshire victory.

She won big states like California, New York and New Jersey in the slew of nominating contests on "Super Tuesday" in March.

But she was up against Obama, an rousing orator who attracted large and often youthful audiences at rallies. The Illinois senator, who would be the first black U.S. president, won 11 contests in a row, leaving many to question whether Clinton could hang on.

But in still another comeback -- Bill Clinton had famously called himself "The Comeback Kid" during his own rocky primary campaign in 1992 -- she won in Ohio and Texas, and then Pennsylvania.

(Editing by Frances Kerry)

(For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/ )