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"This year Hillary Clinton did something very rare for a politician: She won while losing. No, she didn&amp;amp;#8217;t reach the White House&amp;amp;#8212;but she motivated a new generation of women of every political stripe. Former GOP congresswoman Susan Molinari told Glamour, &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;m a Republican, but I&amp;amp;#8217;m also a mother of two girls, and now my daughters have no doubts that they could grow up to be president.&amp;amp;#8221; Hillary (does anyone use her last name?) sometimes calls herself &amp;amp;#8220;the best-known person in the world whom you really don&amp;amp;#8217;t know.&amp;amp;#8221; As it happens, I know Hillary Clinton. Over the past decade I have spent a decent amount of time with her, partly because I interviewed her several times for a book I wrote about presidential marriages, and partly because my husband served in her husband&amp;amp;#8217;s cabinet. So I have seen her in the White House and the Senate, and as an honored guest at our home on close to a dozen occasions. Perhaps this middle distance&amp;amp;#8212;not part of Hillaryland and not a complete outsider&amp;amp;#8212;allows me a useful perspective on this trailblazing political pioneer. She has always defied the odds&amp;amp;#8212;and her critics. As First Lady, when she was called down and out after the failure of her health care reform, she picked herself up and used her bully pulpit to become a global advocate for women and children. On September 5, 1995, she stood before thousands at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and declared, to thunderous applause, &amp;amp;#8220;Women&amp;amp;#8217;s rights are human rights.&amp;amp;#8221; Then she took direct aim at China&amp;amp;#8217;s shameful record on female infanticide, saying, &amp;amp;#8220;It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.&amp;amp;#8221; In Pakistan, India and Nepal, women waited for hours just to catch a glimpse of her. Hillary had found her platform and her self-confidence&amp;amp;#8212;and she made up her mind to run for public office herself. Her resounding Senate victories followed, and then came her presidential bid. During the primaries, with her back to the wall, she again showed what she was really made of&amp;amp;#8212;grit, brilliance and a surprising vulnerability. Tearing up while answering a sympathetic question at a New Hampshire coffee klatch about how she could handle so much pressure and criticism, she gave us a rare glimpse into her soul, displaying a side she has been trained (and self-trained) to suppress in public. Early on, she had campaigned not as a female, but as a politician who &amp;amp;#8220;happened to be a woman.&amp;amp;#8221; As the months went by, that distinction seemed to erode. In almost imperceptible ways, she became more of what she really was&amp;amp;#8212;the first woman to mount a serious campaign for the presidency. She put more emphasis on women&amp;amp;#8217;s issues and one of her real passions, health care. But Barack Obama, an extraordinary, history-making candidate in his own right, was on a roll, not to be denied. When Hillary finally ended her hard-fought campaign on June 7, she did it with eloquence and precision. Unbowed, she moved even her critics; many who had opposed her wept as she spoke in the sweeping hall of the grand old Pension Building in Washington, D.C. She emerged from defeat ennobled by her gutsy campaign. And of course, she&amp;amp;#8217;s not done yet. She continues to be a huge force on every topic she cares about, and her stature remains undiminished throughout the world. &amp;amp;#8220;Hillary has emerged as an international symbol of the endeavor to give globalization a more human face,&amp;amp;#8221; says Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile. Hillary&amp;amp;#8217;s famous &amp;amp;#8220;18 million cracks&amp;amp;#8221; in the glass ceiling&amp;amp;#8212;the number of votes cast for her in the primaries&amp;amp;#8212;represent the closest any woman has ever come to the greatest prize in the world, the presidency of the United States. Her candidacy defined the high-water mark of the women&amp;amp;#8217;s movement in American political life&amp;amp;#8212;so far. I believe that young girls and women everywhere, Republicans and Democrats, will carry the images of Hillary&amp;amp;#8217;s run in their heads and hearts for the rest of their lives. Some will follow in her footsteps, inspired to take the fight further. Whether they know it or not, their paths will be easier because of the courage and grace of Hillary Clinton in 2008. Kati Marton is the former chair of the International Women&amp;amp;#8217;s Health Coalition and the author of Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/women-of-the-year/2008/hillary-clinton>