History: Hillary Rodham Clinton is making her first bid for president but nobody could call her new to presidential politics.

The former first lady who now represents New York in the U.S. Senate, spent eight years in a pot-boiler White House, where controversy was a constant.

Now, she's seeking to become the first female president.

She's come a long way since the days when, at 27, she was worked on the impeachment of Richard Nixon as a House committee staffer.

Clinton became a prominent attorney and spent years working on children's issues. She also played a a significant role in her husband's tenure as governor of Arkansas.

She did the same at the White House, notably leading a task force aimed at revamping the nation's health care system. The effort failed, but she became identified with the issue.

Elected to the Senate in 2000, Clinton has won praise but also criticism, notably for supporting the 2002 measure to authorize the Iraq War, a vote she says she wouldn't cast again but for which she has refused to apologize.

Clinton has proven herself an ample fundraiser and a hard campaigner.

She's said she'd end the war in Iraq, push for a new energy policy and make revamping health care a movement to finally achieve universal care.

But she also is an undeniably polarizing figure, with her nomination raising the prospect that controversies like the Whitewater investment deal, her lucrative investment in commodities futures and, of course, her husband's impeachment potential issues.

Biography: Quad-City Times | Photo: AP

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