“I’m not sitting here as some little woman,” came the crisp reply, “standing by my man like Tammy Wynette. I’m sitting here because I love him.”Country stars and their fans rose as one in protest But that evening one ballsy lady had stolen the show. At later campaign events, Bill would bring his wife on stage, proclaiming: “Vote for one, and get two.” And Hillary has stood by him ever since, in a partnership that conforms to no rules, but which has provided fodder for a dozen books. It is a soap-cum-psychodrama that fascinates or repels, depending on your side in the culture wars, but leaves few indifferent.Time and again, above all after the Monica Lewinsky humiliation, she asked herself the question, whether or not to stick with her husband. When he told her the truth about the young intern (by the book’s account just 48 hours before the 42nd President had to testify before a grand jury, after six months of lies) Hillary wanted to “wring Bill’s neck”.

She was not sure the marriage “could – or should – survive” the betrayal.But as usual, she toughed it out. Her mother Dorothy Rodham loved to tell the story of the four-year-old Hillary and the neighbourhood bully in the middle-class Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. The bully was an older and bigger girl, but Dorothy told her daughter to hit back. She did so in front of a group of boys, and then ran home in delight: “I can play with the boys now.” She has never yielded an inch to the opposite sex since.She met Bill at Yale Law School in 1970, in the library reading room. Clinton had been staring at her, and in typical no-nonsense style, she broke the ice. “Look,” she said as she approached him, “if you’re going to keep staring at me, and I’m going to keep staring back, we should at least introduce ourselves.

I’m Hillary Rodham.”The physical side of their marriage may be speculated upon ad infinitum But mentally they were – and remain – a perfect match Each respected the other’s intellect. She was the decisive one, articulate, business-like and determined He was charming, disorganised and irresistibly persuasive. They performed together in the law school’s 1972 prize trial, a mock trial in which graduating students have to show their forensic mettle. One classmate in the audience observed later of their contrasting but complementary styles, that Hillary never bothered about stepping on toes, but “Bill would massage your toes”.That year she worked with her future hus- band on George McGovern’s losing presidential campaign, before moving to Washington as a researcher on the house judiciary committee which was preparing grounds for Richard Nixon’s possible impeachment.