Hillary Clinton: burning ambition and resilience to match

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton throws a balloon after speaking to there delegates during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Thursday, July 28, 2016. AP Photo

WASHINGTON—On the subject of women in politics, Hillary Clinton is fond of quoting the words of another illustrious first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, who once said: “You need to grow a skin as thick as a rhinoceros.”

When out on the stump, in cafes, and rallies across the country, Clinton talks of the adversity she has faced down over the course of four decades in public life.

“I have the scars to prove it,” quips the former secretary of state, painted by her enemies as “crooked,” “corrupt” and even an enabler of her husband’s affairs.

A Machiavellian image clings to the ambitious Midwesterner, dating back to her years in the political spotlight as a tandem with Bill.

READ: Hillary Clinton’s lifelong ambition: presidency

She is considered “dishonest” by a majority of Americans, and the mudslinging is only set to intensify as she heads into a brutal showdown with presidential rival Donald Trump.

And yet, at age 68, Clinton now stands at the threshold of the White House.

On Thursday, she accepted her party’s formal nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, making history as the first woman to carry the colors of a major US political party in the presidential race.

In her acceptance speech, Clinton vowed to be the president of all Americans.

READ: Hillary Clinton vows to be president for ‘all Americans’

“I will be a president for Democrats, Republicans and independents,” Clinton said. “For the struggling, the striving and the successful. For those who vote for me and those who don’t. For all Americans.”

And she fired off red-hot barbs at her Republican rival, who has gloomily depicted America as being mired in an acute crisis of crime, violence and other woes at home and disrespect abroad.

“He wants to divide us — from the rest of the world, and from each other,” Clinton said. “He wants us to fear the future and fear each other.”

President Barack Obama delivered a soaring testimonial Wednesday, praising Clinton’s caliber and readiness for the job.

“I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman … more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president,” he said.

From Chicago to Arkansas

Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947 and raised in a middle-class household in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge.

She adored her mother Dorothy but described her father, Hugh Rodham, born from Welsh immigrants, as a rigid taskmaster.

He imposed his work ethic on young Hillary, but also his frugality. She still puts uneaten olives back in the jar and is loath to waste anything, she wrote in her 2003 autobiography, “Living History.”

Clinton shared her father’s Republican convictions in adolescence, as well as his thunderous laugh. The family is Methodist, and to this day Hillary remains in the church.

Since her school days, she chased success, earning honors and accolades that could fill a bookcase.

Smart and ambitious, Clinton was admitted in 1965 to Wellesley, an elite women’s college near Harvard, and eventually was elected class president.

It was the social tumult of the sixties, and Clinton learned of the struggle for civil rights, the explosive debate over Vietnam and the fight for gender equality.

When she was accepted in 1969 at Yale Law School, she met Bill Clinton, the “Viking” from Arkansas who would change her life.

After working for the Children’s Defense Fund, and a period in Washington in 1974 on the commission investigating the Watergate scandal, she gave in and joined Bill in Arkansas.

He was soon elected governor and Hillary Rodham joined a prestigious law firm, eventually becoming its first female partner. Chelsea, their only child, was born in 1980.

Political first lady

She soon dropped her maiden name and became Hillary Clinton, first lady of Arkansas and then the nation after her husband’s 1992 presidential election victory.

Her assertive style contrasted with that of her predecessors.

She played an active political role as first lady. But her relations with lawmakers and journalists quickly soured over her efforts to reform health care, a role bestowed by her president husband. Republicans branded her a radical feminist.

She suffered intense humiliation when news of Bill’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky surfaced in 1998. But her popularity has never been higher than the 67-percent approval rating she enjoyed that December, a Gallup poll at the time showed.

Solo career

Pressured by friends and associates in Hillaryland, the first lady launched herself into politics, winning a US Senate seat for New York in 2000.

Eight years later, she challenged fellow senator Obama, who savaged her vote supporting the Iraq war, in the presidential race.

Clinton chose to run on her experience, refusing to campaign on gender. But Americans opted instead for the 40-something political neophyte Obama, bringing hope of change after eight years of George W. Bush.

Following detente with his party rival, Obama appointed Clinton secretary of state.

Her critics argue she can claim no major diplomatic successes, and Republicans accuse her of incompetence over a 2012 militant attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans.

Her use of a personal email account instead of an official government one remains problematic for her.

When the FBI chief declared he would not recommend charges be brought against her, it only heightened suspicions that the Clintons see themselves as above the law.

But her four globe-trotting years as secretary of state also cemented her image as a powerful stateswoman and that potent mix of tenaciousness and cold realism finally saw the better of her idealist Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders.

Suzanne Salomon, a development consultant and former Wellesley College dorm mate of Hillary’s, said, “I don’t see that much change in her.”

“She was a leader when we were 19 years old,” she told Agence France-Presse. “She knew what she wanted to do, when some of us had no clue what we were going to be when we grew up.”