I’m not the person to ask. I have no plans (to run)…. He (Bill Clinton) is very anxious for someone to defeat George Bush and put the country back on the right track, but he’s going to support whoever our nominee is…

Hillary Rodham Clinton has been acknowledged to be the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history, save for Eleanor Roosevelt. Never one to be in the shadows, the senator has now stepped centre stage even as her other half recedes into the background. CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA keeps an appointment in Washington DC with the lady who would be president

Back in the late 1970s, when Hillary Rodham was the First Lady of Arkansas, and a working First Lady at that (she was a successful attorney), her husband, Governor Bill Clinton, chose her to head a committee on children’s education. When she addressed a group of legislators with the committee’s findings, her performance was so skillful that a state representative, Lloyd George, an unsparing critic of the administration, sprang to his feet and blurted a remark that echoed for years thereafter: ‘Gentlemen, we have elected the wrong Clinton!’ A quarter century later, American politics is aflutter with talk that voters might finally have the chance to elect the right Clinton, or at least the other Clinton too, to the highest office. In 2008, if not in 2004. After sublimating her own political ambitions to fuel her husband’s career, Hillary Clinton, never one to be in the shadows, has stepped centre stage even as her other half recedes into the background. Senator Clinton seems to be only a stepping stone to President Clinton, President Hillary Clinton, a wispy wish that first appeared on bumper stickers in 1992 when her husband became the chief executive.

It was always meant to be this way. When Hillary Rodham first met Bill Clinton at the Yale Law School in the late 1960s, her passion for politics was as strong, if not stronger, than his. According to one biography, the fact that Clinton was thinking of the White House even in those early days seemed to be a very attractive proposition for Rodham. On his part, Bill Clinton fell in love with her mind, and her confidence. All other girls fawned on him, but Hillary’s attitude was: ‘I don’t need you.’ When he introduced her to his mother, he explained her plain looks, saying: ‘Look, ma, I have work to do. I don’t need to be married to a sex goddess.’

She was the equal, if not the dominating force in their relationship. Well-matched, temperamentally and intellectually, they complemented each other. They were both brilliant, and it was said they probably had the highest IQ total for a husband-wife political team in the world.

Exclusive pictures by Annie Liebovitz in the issue!