hillary clinton <u+2019>s concession speech wednesday marked the end of her campaign for the presidency, sealing the crushing loss for her and for the millions of women who were galvanized by a movement to finally smash what mrs. clinton famously called <u+201c>the highest, hardest glass ceiling.<u+201d> it was made all the more painful given her opponent<u+2019>s inexperience and a series of allegations against him of unwanted sexual advances and assaults from women. she had more money, more endorsements and a united party behind her. now, for the former secretary of state, it was likely the final act in a four-decade public life. it was 17 years ago when she made a decision that put her onto the course that ended tuesday. for nearly two decades she had been a first lady<u+2014>first for arkansas, and then for the nation<u+2014>and she was trying to decide what to do next. the decision loomed late one evening, in the summer of 1999, when her wellesley college classmates gathered at the white house for their 30th year reunion. mrs. clinton<u+2019>s question: whether to launch an unprecedented run for the senate by a first lady. in this campaign, mrs. clinton, now 69 years old, fully embraced her gender, a contrast to her first presidential run, in 2008. she joked about dyeing her hair, gushed over being a grandmother and emphasized issues like equal pay. when opponents charged she was playing the <u+201c>women<u+2019>s card,<u+201d> she thundered back, <u+201c>deal me in!<u+201d> her campaign embraced the slogan, <u+201c>i<u+2019>m with her,<u+201d> emphasis on the <u+201c>her.<u+201d> after the dinner and over breakfast the next morning, mrs. clinton talked it over with some of her closest friends. some saw merit in less-risky opportunities following her husband<u+2019>s impeachment-scarred presidency, but her mind seemed set on the senate, her friend jan piercy recalled. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t want to be known forever as the former first lady,<u+201d> mrs. clinton told her. a month later, mrs. clinton announced her candidacy in new york. it was the moment when she transformed from partner to politician, when she put herself before the voters for the first time and set on course to,<u+00a0>16 years later, possibly become the nation<u+2019>s first female president after 43 men. she tried twice for the white house, though her first presidential race was in high school in park ridge, ill., the chicago suburb where hillary diane rodham was born and raised. she ran against several boys, one of whom told her she was <u+201c>really stupid if i thought a girl could be elected president.<u+201d> she lost. she was later elected president of the student body at wellesley, the women<u+2019>s college she attended. there she made national news with a commencement speech in 1969, when she offered a pointed rebuttal to the previous speaker, sen. edward brooke. his speech argued against <u+201c>coercive protest<u+201d> and struck hillary rodham as failing to understand the social upheaval under way. <u+201c>the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible,<u+201d> she said.the speech landed her in life magazine, which cast her as a leading voice for her generation. thus she arrived at yale law school with some cachet, and graduated with enormous opportunities. but at yale she met and fell in love with bill clinton, and she moved to arkansas to be with him. in her new home, she found expectations for women were vastly different than they were at yale or in washington, where she had worked on the congressional impeachment committee. her law school friend nancy bekavac remembers stopping to visit on a cross-country trip in november 1974, just a couple months after the future mrs. clinton had arrived. she went along to a chicken dinner, and when the meal was over, mr. clinton stood to move to another room. ms. bekavac stood to join them when hillary informed her that they were going to talk politics<u+2014><u+201c>just the men,<u+201d> ms. bekavac recalled. <u+201c>you can<u+2019>t do this,<u+201d> she later told her law school friend. <u+201d>you can<u+2019>t live perpetually put down.<u+201d> hillary<u+2019>s response was simple: <u+201c>but i love him.<u+201d> in arkansas, she repeatedly defied gender expectations. she became the first female associate and then the first female partner at the rose law firm. some of her male colleagues didn<u+2019>t know what to make of a woman who expected to continue working when she got pregnant, and who would sometimes arrive at the firm in casual clothing and without makeup. mr. clinton was elected governor in 1978, and mrs. clinton was immediately questioned about her new role as the state<u+2019>s first lady. in early 1979, a local tv interviewer asked whether she might see her husband more if she gave up her job, and said <u+201c>one gets the impression that<u+2026>you<u+2019>re really not all that interested possibly in state dinners and teas and garden parties, the kind of things we tend to associate with governors<u+2019> wives.<u+201d> she replied that wasn<u+2019>t true. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m interested in everything,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m interested in social events and civic events as well as my own professional life. i don<u+2019>t see any reason to be an either-or person. i never have.<u+201d> when mr. clinton was defeated for re-election in 1980, the loss was blamed on his wife<u+2019>s image, including her decision to keep her own last name. after that, she decided some conformity was in order. she added clinton to her name, got contact lenses and changed her hair (not for the last time). voters returned mr. clinton to office in 1982. the clintons moved to the national stage as he ran for president in 1992. when mr. clinton was confronted with allegations of infidelity, his wife sat with him for an interview on <u+201c>60 minutes,<u+201d> her introduction to many americans.<u+00a0><u+201c>i<u+2019>m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like tammy wynette,<u+201d> she said. ms. wynette, and many of her country music fans, found that belittling. <u+201c>while voters genuinely admire hillary clinton<u+2019>s intelligence and tenacity, they are uncomfortable with these traits in a woman,<u+201d> celinda lake and stan greenberg wrote in an internal campaign memo. they recommended that mrs. clinton project <u+201c>a softer side.<u+201d> arriving to the white house in 1993, mrs. clinton again challenged assumptions around her role. she became the first first lady to take an office in the west wing, where the president<u+2019>s staff works, and took charge of the administration<u+2019>s top legislative priority, overhauling the health-care system. when the initiative failed, she shouldered much of the blame. in a september 1994 interview, she described herself as a <u+201c>transition figure<u+201d> and a <u+201c>rorschach test<u+201d> for american views over the role of women. <u+201c>if somebody has a female boss for the first time, and they<u+2019>ve never experienced that<u+2014>well, maybe they can<u+2019>t take out their hostility against her so they turn it on me,<u+201d> she told the wall street journal. but privately, she resented what felt like an impossible standard. on thanksgiving in 1996, she told her close friend, diane blair, that no matter what she did, someone would be unhappy, according to ms. blair<u+2019>s notes, which are housed at the university of arkansas. <u+201c>i know i should pretend not to have any opinions<u+2014>but i<u+2019>m just not going to,<u+201d> she wrote, quoting mrs. clinton. <u+201c>i know how to compromise, i have compromised, i gave up my name, got contact lenses, but i<u+2019>m not going to try and present to be somebody that i<u+2019>m not.<u+201d> on feb. 12, 1999, the senate voted to acquit her husband on four articles of impeachment, stemming from his affair with a white house intern. mrs. clinton spent that day with harold ickes, a veteran of new york politics. with a map of new york spread before them, he gave her a tutorial on new york politics: important people to meet, ethnic politics, key differences between upstate, suburbs and new york city<u+2019>s five boroughs. many of her friends and advisers recommended against it. on the weekend of the wellesley reunion, mrs. clinton<u+2019>s former political science professor, alan schechter, wondered aloud why she would want to try after living through so much criticism. listening to her, he realized that as a former first lady, her position would <u+201c>always be derivative.<u+201d> she had a platform because of her husband<u+2019>s job, not her own. <u+201c>by the end of the conversation,<u+201d> he said, <u+201c>all of us felt she had made up her mind.<u+201d> write to laura meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com
hillary clinton<u+2019>s shocking loss to donald trump may mark the end of a path-breaking career  - wsj
laura meckler