Hillary Clinton.(DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE)(Biography)

"Being pro-choice is trusting the individual to make the right decision for herself and her family, and not entrusting that decision to anyone wearing the authority of government."--H. Clinton

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Hillary Clinton is perhaps the best known of the 2008 presidential candidates, at once the most fervently admired by supporters, and most disdained by detractors.

Most Americans know where Senator Clinton stands on the issues, and many of them like those stands. Her popularity comes from a promise to make socialism work.

First, some history: Hillary Rodham was born in 1947, and grew up as a "Goldwater Republican" in a Chicago suburb, becoming a radical feminist by her senior year at Wellesley College. Yale Law School followed, after which she practiced law with a number of organizations.

Miss Rodham became Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1975 and went to Arkansas, where daughter Chelsea was born. When Bill became governor of Arkansas in 1979, she was First Lady until 1992 (with one two-year interruption), after which she became First Lady of the United States.

In the White House, she assumed a significant policy role, once declaiming, "We are the president." Scandals plagued her entire "co-presidency," including improprieties in fundraising and hiring/firing, sweetheart deals for relatives, and a plethora of Arkansas business scares including the notorious Whitewater scandal.