THE SATURDAY PROFILE: She has emerged from the shadow of Bill to be her own man. Patrick Smyth profiles Hillary Clinton, who is due to visit Ireland next week.
IN the middle of the crowd of dark-suited, burly firefighters, the diminutive figure is a flash of colour. Blond hair and a bright blue pullover worn like a scarf on her shoulders over the black trouser suit that is her uniform. Intense. Then quiet, nodding as she listens. Easy laugh.
Then on again, passionately explaining, urging. "We've had the praise," she says of her Bill to pump cash into local fire services, "now we need the resources." They cheer and press forward to greet the senator from New York as she finishes and she has to work all the way back to the steps of the Capitol and the police barrier. They all want to talk to her. This is the way it is all the time.
Hillary Clinton (54), who visits Ireland next week with a business delegation to promote rundown, upstate New York, has taken to the Senate like a duck to water. She relishes and appears at total ease with the pressing crowd, just as she revels in the detail of policy - "policy wonk" she has been called.
And to a great extent, without fanfare or demands for special treatment, her competence and charm has won over many of the bitter opponents who made the last years of her husband's presidency a nightmare.
"I have to say that I have felt very welcomed and that was true even in the very beginning," she says.
"My colleagues have gone out of their way to reach out to me both in a personal manner as well as on issues. The women members, both Republicans and Democrats, have been very supportive." She even organised a baby shower for a Republican member.
No sexism in the office? No condescending comments about how surprisingly good she's been? "No", she says, laughing. But she wouldn't admit to it anyway. The head-down-to-the-grindstone, no-complaining policy has paid dividends. One year on, the senator has more influence than any first termer.
Before she met The Irish Times at 12.30pm on Tuesday, the whirlwind that propels this human dynamo has whisked her through two press conferences, a session in the Senate's Health Committee, as well as a few office minutes for constituency work. Then it was off to meet more firefighters, a Democratic caucus lunch, and an afternoon with 11 diary items, concluding with dinner with her New York Senate colleague, Charles Schumer.
After September 11th, she admits, 90 per cent of her time was taken up with aspects of fall-out from the attacks from lobbying for cash for the victims or New York - she and Schumer got $11 billion off Bush - to work on homeland security. Now its down to 75 per cent. And an eight-day week.
The First Lady is another life. Gone the constraints, the humiliation, the enforced silence. The partnership with her husband is still there by all accounts, bruised, but still driven by a common passion for politics.
He tries to make it to their $2.8 million home in Washington DC two nights a week, she to New York, three nights. But their schedules still pull them apart.
There is a book coming on those years, for which an advance of $8 million has been paid, though when she gets a chance to work on it, God knows.
When she agreed to write the book it seemed to make sense - but this Lady Macbeth hate figure to the media and the right now seems to have banished the past, her approval ratings now up as high as 59 per cent.
One of her tormentors has recently even acknowledged that it really was all a right-wing conspiracy, albeit aided by her husband's weakness.
The Daily News says she is "on her way to being a certified New Yorker".
Through it all she manages to keep time for Irish issues, meeting virtually every delegation of politicians that comes over.
"I just love Ireland. I love going there. I love spending time there," she says with real enthusiasm, insisting on her continued commitment to the peace process.
"What my husband did when he was president involved all of us, and I was privileged to play a small role trying to help to facilitate the peace process in creating opportunities, particularly for women, to become more fully engaged."
And the stories of a Clinton holiday home in Cork? "It's a wonderful rumour. I wish it were true."
Her politics are her husband's. She is a passionate believer in the Blairite merging of community values with individual responsibility, and of the liberating effect of fiscal discipline. Yes, a role for the state, but as enabler not actor.
"I think that the emphasis on opportunity, responsibility and community is not just a slogan but an operating principle," Clinton argues, insisting that the New Democrats have charted a way not only for the US but internationally.
She backs the tough welfare reform that has largely been taken on board by the Republicans. "I think that the idea behind making work pay should be sustainable in both good economic times and downturns...Yes a lot of people in a good economy were moved off welfare. We want to continue that but we also want to make work pay for lower income Americans whether or not they ever were on welfare." She is sharper in her critiques of the Administration's energy policy - "a 19th Century ... emphasis on drilling our way out of our energy needs" - and on the economy, decrying "irresponsible" tax cuts.
Like her Democratic colleagues, Clinton will only admit to tactical differences with Bush on the war. "The unity in the country which is reflected in the Congress is real and deep. We were attacked. We are defending ourselves and we are also carrying a lot of the burden for trying to disrupt these terrorism networks to prevent them from taking action against any of friends and allies," she says.
On Iraq, she is more cautious, accepting that "Saddam Hussein does pose a clear and present danger to not only the US but to the region and beyond" and the need for the US to promote a "regime change". But she will not be drawn on means, military or diplomatic, insisting that Iraq must wait until Afghanistan and the Middle East are stable.
But her views on the Palestinian issue are harsh and hawkish - hers is as much a Jewish constituency as an Irish one - bluntly blaming Arafat for an historic lost opportunity not only for peace but a Palestinian state and security for Israel.
"My fundamental belief is that both sides have to take risks for peace. And having watched very closely for the eight years of my husband's administration I saw all the risks being taken on the Israeli side.
"And at the Camp David discussions in July, 2000, I saw a prime minister willing to go as far as anyone could imagine going under historic and present circumstances only to meet a dead end. And in the final days of my husband's administration additional offers that were made were similarly rebuffed.
"I think that the violence that has been perpetrated by the terrorists has been at least known if not controlled by Yasser Arafat. And I think that it is understandable that Israel would have to defend itself. You know, when you are blowing up pizza parlours and discotheques and deliberately murdering young people as a way of making a political statement no nation can sit by."
What about proportionality? Does that justify tanks in Ramallah?
"I think it is necessary to demonstrate very clearly to Arafat and to the terrorists, both directly and indirectly under his control, that you cannot bomb your way to the peace table especially when there was a very realistic offer that was rebuffed. And I regret deeply the loss of life on both sides...
"I don't see any other way of analysing what's going on other than saying we could have had by this time a Palestinian state, we could have had secure borders, we could have had shared leadership on many of the difficult points.
"What was missing? A leader for the Palestinians willing to take risks for peace. It wasn't there."
And what of her own future? She fundraises, as one commentator put it, like a presidential candidate, bringing in $1.3 million in her first year.
2004 is definitely out, but what about 2008? "No," she says bluntly, insisting that she also does much fundraising for other Democrats.
True. But then, so would a far-sighted candidate for the White House.