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Hillary Clinton looked into their eyes, her voice dropping. This is very personal for me, the senator from New York told a small group of undecided voters in a Portsmouth, N.H., cafe in January 2008.

Her voice cracked with emotion. Clintons campaign for president was foundering. Another history-seeking Democrat, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, had won the Iowa caucuses, and polls showed him with a double-digit lead over Clinton on the day before the New Hampshire primary.

A woman asked how Clinton did it how, after all she had been through, she remained so upbeat. Clinton paused, tears welling in her eyes. I see whats happening, she said. And we have to reverse it.

She had, until that point, been scripted and cautious, intent on projecting the gravitas of a commander in chief. Voters struggled to connect, and the campaign appeared adrift, beset by bickering and leaks that Clinton seemed unable to control.

Then, whether it was authenticity or a Hail Mary by a desperate campaign, Clinton went off the familiar script. Her voice softened. I just dont want to see us fall backwards, she said. You know?

The next day, she erased Obamas lead and won New Hampshire, though Obamas historic momentum would be too much to overcome. Portsmouth, though, was more meaningful than one primary win. I found my footing, Clinton wrote in Hard Choices, her second memoir, and my voice.

She refused to concede to Obama, even when it was clear she couldnt win. And by the end of her campaign, 18million people had voted to nominate a woman for president of the United States.

When the time finally came to withdraw, an 89-year-old woman wearing green entered the atrium of Washingtons National Building Museum to listen to Clintons concession speech. When youre knocked down, Clinton told hundreds of supporters, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you cant or shouldnt go on.

The woman in green applauded, and Clinton continued.

Although we werent able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, its got about 18million cracks in it, she said as Dorothy Rodham watched from a few feet away.

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Hillary Clinton won't back down. Or go away. | The ...

Story highlights Republicans and some Democrats are criticizing the policy of U.S. intervention in Libya Hillary Clinton was a key force in the U.S. getting involved in the North African state She will face questions about her role in that decision on the campaign trail

She's already grappling with the political headaches from deleted emails and from the terror attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi.

But she'll face a broader challenge in what's become of the North African country since, as secretary of state in 2011, she was the public face of the U.S. intervention to push out its longtime strongman, Moammar Gadhafi.

Libya's lapse into the chaos of failed statehood has provided a breeding ground for terror and a haven for groups such as ISIS. Its plight is also creating an opening for Republican presidential candidates to question Clinton's strategic acumen and to undermine her diplomatic credentials, which will be at the center of her pitch that only she has the global experience needed to be president in a turbulent time.

READ: First round of Hillary Clinton State Department emails released

Gathering questions over Libya also point to one of the central complications of Clinton's campaign for the Democratic nomination, due to formally launch on Saturday: the fact that she must own a record at the State Department that lacks clear-cut diplomatic triumphs. She'll also have to answer for misfires in the Obama administration's wider foreign policy as GOP candidates who have not faced the same tough choices can nitpick her record with the advantage of hindsight.

Libya has long been a vulnerability for Clinton because of the deaths of U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in an attack on the Benghazi consular building and a CIA installation on September 11, 2012.

But Republicans have yet to prove that she was personally negligent or to convince voters that she's not fit for higher office because of the controversy. So now they're opening a new front on the wisdom of the intervention itself.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a GOP presidential candidate, has called Libya a "jihadist wonderland" and Hillary Clinton a "war hawk" in questioning the mission, which he is using to flesh out a wider critique that American military interventions in the Middle East have backfired badly.

"Somebody needs to ask Hillary Clinton, was it a good idea to topple Gadhafi in Libya? I think it's a disaster. Libya is a failed state. Someone ought to pay and Hillary Clinton needs to answer questions about it," Paul said at an Iowa Republican Party Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines on May 16.

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Hillary Clinton's real Libya problem - CNNPolitics.com

Hillary Clintons campaign rollout so far has taken many people by surprise. All the silly folderol about emails and her unwillingness to talk to the press aside, what seems to have many reeling is the list of rather shockingly liberal agenda items shes announced and the decidedly populist approach shes taken to solving them. Apparently most observers thought she would run as if it were 1992 and the long-disbanded Democratic Leadership Council was in its heyday. But you have to admit that even by comparison to her run in 2008, she it taking a much more aggressively progressive stance on a number of issues from immigration to criminal justice reform to voting rights that just a short while ago would have been seen to be dangerous ground for a Democratic candidate for president.

For decades Democrats tried to finesse thorny racial issues (which is what many of those issues named above subconsciously relate to) while still being seen as the party friendly to racial minorities. It hasnt bought them a white Southern vote in a national election in decades. It was always a fools errand but it took the victory of an African American president to finally show the party how to win without them.

And Clinton, not being a fool, can see that quite clearly as well. But she doesnt seem to arrogantly believe that the coalition that elected President Obama twice should be taken for granted and good for her. It shouldnt be and if the Democratic party expects to win presidential elections it has an obligation to put the needs of those voters above the prejudices of voters who will never vote for them anyway. Its hard to believe they ever thought that was a winning strategy in the first place.

But its still amusing for some of us who lived through the Clinton administration years to see people blinking in amazement that Hillary Clinton would be running for president on what looks so far to be a pretty liberal platform. After all, in the 90s it was widely believed that she was the evil Rasputin whispering Marxist feminist theory in poor Bills ear every night. Her liberal feminist image in Arkansas had been a subject of endless gossip and criticism for years but conservative columnist Paul Gigot in the Wall Street Journalgot the ball rollingin the national press when he dredged up some of her early academic work and famously called her an ardent liberal and feminist in the spring of 1992. The social conservatives went nuts, with Christian Right leaders like Gary Bauerclaimingthat Clinton had a radical philosophy that would rip the heart out of any family. At the Republican ConventionPat Buchanan famously roared:

Elect me, and you get two for the price of one, Mr. Clinton says of his lawyer-spouse. And what And what does Hillary believe? Well, Hillary believes that 12-year-olds should have the right to sue their parents. And Hillary has compared marriage and the family, as institutions, to slavery and life on an Indian reservation. Well, speak for yourself, Hillary.

Friends Friends, this This, my friends This is radical feminism. The agenda that Clinton & Clinton would impose on America: abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat units. Thats change, all right. But thats not the kind of change America needs. Its not the kind of change America wants. And its not the kind of change we can abide in a nation we still call Gods country.

There have been many books and articles written about all this so theres no need to rehash it all now. Suffice to say it was probably a lot more complicated than any of that and so is Hillary Clinton. In the intervening years her image morphed into one of a centrist largely, I believe, on the basis of her monumental error in voting for the Iraq war. (According to the Poole and RosenthalDW-Nominate analysisher Senate record placed her at 11th most liberal out of a hundred. Joe Biden, by comparison was number 33 and Bernie Sanders No. 1 in the same period.) Its probably enough to simply say that Clinton is a mainstream Democrat and leave it at that. People will decide whether or not thats sufficient when they go to the voting booth.

It is, nonetheless, interesting to ponder why so many liberals are convinced that the person who was once seen as a hard core liberal feminist is now widely assumed to be a middle-of-the-road centrist. Brian Beutler tackled this subject last week inthis piece at The New Republicwhere he posits that its because of Bill Clintons reputation for a political tactic called triangulation rather than any specific ideological issues. He wrote:

For the better part of 20 years now, Bill Clintons presidency has been synonymous with a hazy political concept called triangulation. Since his advisers made the term famous, it has been used to describe everything from standard-issue compromise, to the willingness to confront reactionary elements in ones own party (think Sister Souljah), to the appropriation of another political partys policy ideas. The latter is as close to a proper definition as there is.

One big concern bedeviling progressives is that Hillary Clintons candidacy will mark the return of triangulationthe preemptive ceding of ideological turf, at a time when, thanks to partisan polarization, such concessions amount to outright victories for the Republican Party.

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Hillary shocker: Who needs Elizabeth Warren? Clinton ...

HOUSTON Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday called for sweeping changes in national voter-access laws aimed at making it easier for young people and minorities to take part in elections, putting her on a collision course with Republicans who say such measures are a political ploy that would lead to widespread abuses.

In a speech at a historically black college here, Clinton called for federal legislation that would automatically register Americans to vote at age18 and would mandate at least 20days of early voting ahead of election days in all states.

Making her most fiercely partisan political speech since her first, failed run for president in 2008, Clinton attacked Republicans for what she characterized as a calculated attempt to turn back the clock on voting rights and called out several potential 2016 opponents by name for backing voter restrictions as governors.

Today Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting, Clinton said in a speech at Texas Southern University. What part of democracy are they afraid of?

The pointed attacks and extensive policy proposals signal that Clinton intends to make voter access a major plank in her campaign platform a move aimed at firing up the Democratic base and portraying her GOP opponents as suppressing votes. Her campaigns top lawyer, Marc Elias, has co-filed lawsuits over voting access in Ohio and Wisconsin both key presidential battleground states with Republican governors who may join the 2016 race.

The Republican National Committee accused Clinton of being misleading and divisive and noted that her home state of New York does not provide early voting. Her exploitation of this issue only underscores why voters find her dishonest and untrustworthy, RNC spokesman Orlando Watson said in a statement.

During her speech, Clinton said Republican state legislatures are intentionally restricting voting by curtailing early access to the polls and other measures in an effort to suppress Democratic turnout. Among the potential opponents she singled out for criticism were New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former Texas governor Rick Perry. Perry announced his second run for the White House on Thursday.

Today there are people who offer themselves to be leaders whose actions have undercut this fundamental American principle of a free vote, Clinton said.

Perry spokesman Travis Considine said Clintons remarks demonstrate how truly out of touch she is with the people of Texas.

While it is unfortunate, Gov. Perry is not surprised that Hillary Clinton would come to Texas and call for weakening the integrity of our election process, Considine said in a statement.

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Hillary Clinton calls for sweeping expansion of voter ...

Weakening ratings for Hillary Clinton present opportunities for her potential Republican opponents, even as their own contest morphs into an all-out free-for-all, with Jeb Bush surrendering his frontrunner status in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.

While still far ahead for her partys nomination, Clinton faces challenges. Shes slipped underwater in personal favorability for the first time since her unsuccessful run for the presidency in 2008. Shes deeper in the hole for honesty and trustworthiness down 5 points in just two months and 12 points in the last year. And Americans by 17- to 24-point margins disapprove of her handling of recent questions on her use of personal e-mail while secretary of state, her handling of the Benghazi attack in Libya and fundraising by her familys foundation.

See PDF with full results, charts and tables here.

Indeed, while Bush has lost ground in the contest for the GOP nomination, Clinton does less well against him in a head-to-head matchup. The gap between them has closed from 12 points to three 47-44 percent, Clinton-Bush, among registered voters, vs. 53-41 percent two months ago.

Bush, at the same time, has even greater difficulties with personal favorability than Clinton, and a far weaker home base. Hes lost 11 points in support for the nomination among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents who are registered to vote, from a front-running 21 percent in March to 10 percent now, smack alongside Scott Walker and Rand Paul (11 percent apiece) and Marco Rubio (10 percent). Mike Huckabee has 9 percent support, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, 8 percent each.

Bushs decline has come among Republicans (as opposed to GOP-leaning independents) and evangelicals groups with high turnout in GOP primaries and caucuses as well as among moderates. His difficulties include baggage from his brothers administration; the public by an 18-point margin disapproves of how hes answered questions about whether he would have ordered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. And 55 percent of Americans see Bush as out of touch with the concerns of average Americans a greater weakness for him than this measure is for Clinton.

That said, the questions facing Clinton particularly regarding Benghazi and her foundations fundraising are more apt than a hypothetical Iraq do-over to be seen as legitimate issues in the 2016 campaign. Her decline vs. Bush among registered voters, from 53 percent in March to 47 percent now, is a significant one.

The churn in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, is fascinating: A weaker result for Bush in his base, a better result for him against Clinton. Add to that one more finding: Whatever their current positions, were it a Bush-Clinton matchup, the public by 55-39 percent thinks Clinton would win.

Bush, of course, hasnt even announced his candidacy; hes expected to do so later this month. Among those who are in the race, its Rubio whos shown the most movement up 7 points in personal favorability, down 7 in unfavorable views, since the last ABC/Post poll completed March 29. His 10 percent support for the nomination, while underwhelming in real terms, is numerically his highest in ABC/Post polls in the past year.

Rubio also has the distinction of being the only one of nine potential GOP candidates tested for favorability in this poll whos not underwater in this most basic measure of popularity. But he has fairly low recognition overall 31-31 percent, favorable-unfavorable, with the rest up in the air.

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Poll: Hillary Clinton Weakens on Trustworthiness While Jeb ...