WASHINGTON — When she entered the Democratic presidential race 16 months ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton was a cautious front-runner, a careful calibrator of moderate positions, focused largely on showing that a woman could be tough enough to serve as commander in chief.
But that was before Illinois Sen. Barack Obama threw the New York senator's sure-thing campaign off track and forced her to "find her voice," as she put it. By this week, as her campaign lurched to an awkward close, Clinton had embraced a strikingly different role: a defiant insurgent, a spokeswoman for working-class voters who she said "felt invisible," an all-too-human candidate who defined the historic moment's central question as: "What does Hillary Clinton want?"
Now, after her own friends stepped in to nudge her to cede the spotlight to Obama, Clinton must change roles again, from tenacious underdog to presumably gracious loser. That transition could start Saturday, as Clinton holds a Washington event to thank her supporters and rally them around Obama. Then she must begin the sober task of charting a post-campaign career.
Her next chapter could include a role as Obama's running mate, although on Friday she downplayed efforts to put her on the ticket, saying the choice was Obama's alone. More likely, it will mean a return to the Senate, even more prominent than she was before, to work on healthcare and other issues she has long championed. And she may well begin preparing for another run for president -- in 2012 if Obama loses this fall, in 2016 if he wins.
"Hillary Clinton still wants to be president of the United States. That desire may be chilled for now, but it will come into play in every decision she makes," said political strategist Hank Sheinkopf, who worked on President Bill Clinton's reelection campaign in 1996.
--
Reevaluating the brand
But athwart every possible path stands a question Clinton's friends and supporters have been privately debating: What has this campaign, with its role changes and melodramatic turns, done to Hillary Clinton's brand? Has her standing as a national politician been fatally damaged by her loss to an upstart challenger -- or has she actually been strengthened for the long run?
In some ways, her image is stronger: Clinton won 18 million votes and a devoted following among many Democrats, especially women.
