Political dedication: Hillary sacrificed career for Bill

But although this is the first time Mrs Clinton has run for office, she entered political life before marrying the future president.

In 1972 she campaigned for Democrat presidential candidate George McGovern and went on to plan her husband's various campaigns.

While the rumours and scandals have buffeted her and her husband, she has long been seen as the iron will behind a vacillating president.

Public life, public failure?

After his victory in 1992, President Clinton appointed his wife to come up with health care reforms which would provide all Americans with insurance.

However, Republicans and the medical industry criticised the scheme and her appointment and the reforms failed get through Congress.

The following year Hillary Clinton withdrew from public life.

January 1992: "I love him and I respect him"

There was further controversy when she later became embroiled in the Whitewater property investigation.

But while she went before a federal grand jury, Mrs Clinton soon returned to campaigning and began promoting health and women's welfare issues throughout the developing world.

Lewinsky affair

Her personal and political life reached breaking point in August 1998 when the president admitted that he did indeed have an "inappropriate relationship" with Monica Lewinsky.

I survived through soul-searching, friends, religious faith and long, hard discussions

Hillary Clinton on the Lewinsky scandal

But in an interview with Talk magazine, she denied having stood by him for personal political gain.

"Everyone has some dysfunction in their families," she told the magazine. "You don't walk away if you love someone. You help the person."

She said her husband was a "hard dog to keep on the porch" and that dealing with "bimbo eruptions" had long been part of their marriage.

Her husband had been emotionally abused as a child, she said, and he was guilty of "sin of weakness, not a sin of malice".

The president has been at pains to stress his love for his wife since the scandal - knowing she had lived through the Gennifer Flowers scandal years earlier.

In interviews he has paid rich tribute to his wife, describing her as his intellectual equal.

In an interview with the Times newspaper, Betsy Wright, Mr Clinton's former chief of staff in Arkansas, said: "That man would lie down and kill himself before he would let her leave.

Gossip has also focused on Mrs Clinton's private life. One recent book claimed she had a passionate affair with Vince Foster, the Little Rock lawyer who joined the Clintons in the White House before he committed suicide in 1995.

She chose to ignore the publication.

Senate battle

When Hillary Clinton first announced her Senate campaign she was up against the abrasive New York Mayor, Rudolph Guiliani. It looked a tough fight: critics described Mrs Clinton as a "carpetbagger", with no credible links to New York.

She was damaged early in the campaign when she offended some Jewish voters during a trip to the Middle East, by embracing Suha Arafat after a speech in which the wife of the Palestinian leader accused Israel of poisoning Palestinian territories.

Mrs Clinton later issued a statement criticising Mrs Arafat for making inflammatory remarks.

But her campaign strengthened when Mr Guiliani pulled out after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Even so, the race between Mrs Clinton and her Republican opponent Rick Lazio became a close and bitter race. Analysts say the election could go either way, athough October polls have given Mrs Clinton a steady lead.

But whatever happens, Mrs Clinton will be prepared.

"There hasn't been anybody whose life has been picked apart and distorted as much as mine," she was reported to have said early in the campaign.

"I don't think New York can be any worse."